Mathematician, philosopher, and polyglot orientalist. He was the scientific director of the Typographia Medicea, established in Rome in 1584 by cardinal Ferdinando de'Medici and pope Gregorius XIII. With the Typographia he produced beautiful editions of Oriental texts, mainly in Arabic, on Linguistics, Natural sciences, and Christian religion aimed at enhancing the knowledge of Arabic in Europe, opening the Oriental market to printed books, and unifying the Oriental Churches under the Holy See. Among the projects proposed by Raimondi was also an edition, translation and confutation of the Qur'ān about which different documents and preparatory text are preserved.
Petr Posnikov, the eldest of the two brothers, served as a diplomat and translator at Russian diplomatic missions in Europe. He was among the first Russians to enter the newly-formed Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy (founded 1685) in Moscow; between 1692 and 1694, he studied medicine at the University of Padua. He is considered as a possible author of the 1726 (not 1716) Qur'an translation into Russian.
The younger brother of Petr Posnikov who had the same name and also worked as a translator and diplomat for the Russian state. Little information is available about his life, except for the fact that he studied in Paris. Given his younger age, Petr Posnikov (Jr) is a likely author of the 1726 Qur'an translation into Russian (the elder brother passed away before 1710).
Little information is available on Petr Stepanovich Andreev. It is known that he was a translator from French into Russian and rendered works by Humphrey Prideaux and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Bishop and writer, the first Chancellor of the Order of the Golden Fleece, Jean Germain (1396?-1461) wrote for his patron Philip the Good an anti-Islamic treatise called "Trésor des simples" and which also offers the first French translation of the "Epistula sarraceni et rescriptum christiani", Peter of Toledo's Latin version of the Risālat-al-Kindi.
Tsar Peter the Great ruled first the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire in 1682-1725. During his rule, he implemented a variety of sweeping reforms aimed at modernising Russia.
Aleksei Vasil'evich Kolmakov (d. 1804) was a Russian intellectual, poet, and translator. In 1776 to study agronomy, he was sent to Britain, where he mastered English. In 1784, Kolmakov returned to Russia and began serving as a translator at the Admiralty Board in Saint Petersburg. He is the author of literary works, including several odes, and the translator into Russian of 'The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed' by G. Sale.
Vasili Stepanovich Sopikov was a bookseller, publisher, and one of the founders of Russian bibliographical studies. Originally from the merchants family, he was expelled from the merchant rank in 1811. In the 1780s, Sopikov served in Moscow as a clerk in the bookstores of T.A. Polezhaev and N.N. Kolchugin. In 1788, he came to St. Petersburg, where he bought a bookstore and worked as a bookseller until 1803. In 1791–1814 he was engaged in publishing and collecting book rarities. He was closely associated with the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts.
Ivan V Alekseevich Romanov was a Russian Tsar. He co-reigned between 1682 and 1696 together with his half-brother Peter the Great. Ivan's reign was solely titular because he had serious physical and mental issues.
K. Nikolaev was a translator into Russian of "Le Koran" (1840) by Albert Kazimirski de Biberstein. No information is available on his biography. In some sources, his name is given as A. Nikolaev.
Gordii Semenovich Sablukov (1803-1880) was a member of a Russian Orthodox Christian missionary movement, scholar, and historian of religion. In 1826, he graduated from the Orenburg Spiritual Seminary; in 1830 from the Moscow Spiritual Academy. For several years (1830-1849), he taught history and oriental languages at the Saratov Spiritual Seminary and later, in 1849-1962, oriental and classical languages at the Anti-Islamic Department of the Kazan Spiritual Academy. Sablukov's translation of the Qur'an into Russian (1877/8) became the first published translation from the original Arabic text. In addition to this rendering, Sablukov also authored 'Supplements to the translation of the Qur'an' (1879) that contained annotated indexes to text, and two treatises: 'Facts about the Qur'an' (1884) and 'Comparison of the Mohammedan teaching on the names of God with the Christian teaching about them' (1873).
Mikhail Ivanovich Verevkin (1732-1795) was a Russian poet, playwright, and translator.
He graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in 1743 and joined the Navy afterward, where he served for ten years. After several years of work at various educational institutions, in 1763, Verevkin was granted the rank of collegiate counselor; the title implied that the Office of Catherine the Great financed the publication of his translations. In 1782 Verevkin became a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Verevkin is the author of several comedy plays, poems, and numerous translations from French into Russian, including Du Ryer's Qur'an translation and Memoirs of Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully.
Gulnaz Sibgatullina
Pokrovskoe Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg Mikhalevo
Dmitrii Nikolaevich Boguslavskii (1826 - 1893) was a Russian military officer, diplomat, and translator. In 1846 he graduated from the Mikhailovskoe Artillery Academy and for some time attended courses at the Faculty of Oriental Languages at St. Petersburg University, where he studied Arabic and Turkish. In 1862-1870, Boguslavskii worked as a translator at the Russian embassy in Constantinople. There he began working on the translation of the Qur'an into Russian. His translation is considered to be among the first ones produced from the Arabic source text; however, the manuscript remained unstudied and thus unpublished for many years after Boguslavskii's death.
Vladimir Fedorovich Girgas (1835–1887) was a Russian Orientalist, linguist, specialist in Arabic studies. In 1854, he enrolled at the Oriental Faculty of the St. Petersburg University and graduated from it in 1858. In 1859, he went to Paris for two years to study Arabic and Turkish languages. His interest in Arabic studies formed under the influence of Caussin de Perceval and Joseph Toussaint Reinaud. In 1873, he defended his Doctor thesis titled ‘Essays in the Grammar System of Arabs’, where he systematized and analyzed material of previously not published basic Arabic grammar treatises. Together with V. V. Rosen, Girgas prepared the fundamental ‘Arab Chrestomathy’ (1875-1876); he also composed ‘The Dictionary to Arab Chrestomathy and the Qur'an’ (1881), ‘A Survey of Arabic Literature' (1875), and translated a course on Islamic Law ‘Basics of the Muslim Law, According to the Doctrines of Imams Abu Khanifa and Shafi’i’ (1882).
Viktor Romanovich (von) Rosen (1849-1908) was a Russian Orientalist of German-Baltic origin. Rosen attended a school in Reval (today Tallinn) from 1859 to 1866; afterward, he studied in St. Petersburg and a year in Leipzig. He received his doctorate in 1883 having defended his thesis on the history of the Arabic language. In the years 1872 to 1883, he worked as a lecturer, and from 1883 to 1885 as a full professor at St Petersburg University. From 1885 he was President of the Oriental Section of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society, from 1900 a corresponding member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences.
Rosen made a major contribution to the study of Arabic poetry, fiction and scientific literature, history, and culture of the medieval Muslim-Christian East in imperial Russia. He also introduced new methods of research and critical studies of historical sources.
Gulnaz Sibgatullina
Tallinn Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg
Catherine II (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 1729 in Stettin – 17 November 1796 in Saint Petersburg), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was empress of the Russian Empire from 1762 until 1796. Under her reign, Russia enjoyed full participation in the political and cultural life of Europe. She introduced the policy of religious toleration, which forbade the demolition of mosques and the forced conversion of Muslims to Christianity. Part of the success of her religious toleration policy was that it also functioned as a form of control and policing. The unorganised and ethnically diverse Muslim population, which owed loyalties to various imams and religious traditions, was brought under a hierarchical system that attempted to emulate Christian ecclesial practices.
Mullah ʿUthmān Ismāʿīl is mentioned as the person who prepared the 1787 print edition of the Qur'an published in St. Petersburg. According to the available information, he was responsible for designing the script and providing comments on separate suras (the comments appear on the margins of this edition).
Dimitrie Cantemir was the son of the Moldavian prince Constantin Cantemir (d. 1693). After his father’s death in 1693, he ruled for three weeks but failed to secure confirmation from the Ottomans. He returned to the Porte as an aristocratic hostage and then served as a diplomatic representative. In November 1710, Cantemir was appointed prince of Moldavia. Soon after, he signed a treaty of alliance with Tsar Peter the Great and joined forces with the Russian army in its 1711 anti-Ottoman campaign; in 1722, he joined Peter the Great on the Persian campaign. Despite being a prolific writer, the only work that Cantemir published during his Russian period was Kniga sistima ili Sostoianie muhammedanskiia religii (‘The system or structure of the Mohammedan religion’), on the Qur’an.
OFM of the Reformed Roman Province, Lector of Theology, Teacher of Oriental Languages, Prefectus of the Mission to Great Tartaria
Domenico de Silesia, Domenico Germano de Silesia, Dominicus Germanus, Dominik ze Skorogoszczy, Dominikus Germanus, Germán de Silesia, Dominicus Germanus de Silésie
Dominicus Germanus de Silesia's main work is the "Interpretatio Alcorani Literalis", a Latin translation of the entire Qur'an. The most insteresting feature of Dominicus's translation, in comparison to earlier Latin versions of the Qur'an, are his commentaries to each Surah, based on quotations from major Muslim exegetes, both in Dominicus's Latin Translation and -at times- also in the original Arabic. Dominicus also wrote grammars and glossaries for the learning of Oriental Languages, not only Arabic, but also Persian, Turkish and Armenian, some of which he got published. From Persian he also translated into Latin the treatise on logic "al-Risāla al-Shamsiyya" by al-Kātibī with the title "Logica solana". Among others, he also wrote apologetical and missionary works, such as the "Veni-mecum ad Mohammedanos ex Alcorano contra Alcoranum, pro defensione Evangelicae Veritatis".,a
Barthélémy d'Herbelot was a scholar of Oriental languages. He is remembered for his vast opus, the "Bibliothèque orientale". Little is known about his early life and training. He travelled to Italy to pursue his mastery of languages, and eventually enjoyed the patronage of the Duke of Toscany (1662-1666). Upon his return to France, he frequented scholarly and catholic circles and was in charge of the Oriental manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Royale. His work, the Bibliothèque orientale, has been described as “the most ambitious and wide-ranging European reference work about Islamic topics that had ever been produced” (Bevilacqua 2018, 109). The Qur'an is often quoted or referred to, either directly or through Muslim exegetical works.
Asterios Argyriou, “Un « Roman de Mahomet » grec inédit,” Graeco-Arabica 2 (1983): 139–190
The identity of the author can be reconstructed based on the information gathered from the only manuscript he produced (cod. Pant. gr. 110, Mount Athos). His name is Jacob and he is a hieromonak (priest-monk) at the St Panteleimon Monastery of Mount Athos. He might be a refugee to Athos during the Greek War of Independence. Jacob seems to be well versed in European languages, especially French and Italian, since he used Western European polemical text to produce his work.
Johannes Amelsburnus, Johannes Lewenklaw, Joannes Leonclajus
Wittenberg, Heidelberg
University of Wittenberg, University of Heidelberg
Torino, Basel, Istanbul
Savoy court, Habsburg Embassy to the Ottoman Court, Electoral Palatinate
1566
1549
Coesfeld
1541
Vienna
1594
Franz Babinger, "Herkunft und Jugend Hans Lewenklaw's," Westfälische Zeitschrift 98-99 (1949): 112-127; Franz Babinger, "Johannes Lewenklaws Lebensende," Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 50 (1951): 5-26; Marie-Pierre Burtin, "Un apôtre de la tolerance: L'humaniste allemand Johannes Löwenklau, dit Leunclavius (1541–1593?),” Bibliothèque d'humanisme et Renaissance 52/3 (1990): 561-570; Pál Ács, "'Pro Turcis' and 'Contra Turcos': Curiosity, Scholarship and Spiritualism in Turkish Histories by Johannes Löwenklau (1541-1594)," Acta Comeniana 25 (2011): 1-21.
Johannes Leunclavius was a renowned German Humanist and Hellenist. A student of Philipp Melanchthon and Wilhelm Xylander, Leunclavius was interested in ancient and Byzantine Greek texts, and in the Ottoman world. He edited and translated, among others, the works of Xenophon (Basel, 1569 and 1594), Plutarch (Basel, 1565), Gregory of Nazianzus (Basel, 1571), Gregory of Nyssa (Basel, 1571) and Zosimus (Basel, 1576). Between 1584 and 1585, he participated in the Habsburg embassy of Heinrich von Lichtenstein to Istanbul at the court of the Sultan Murad III. His works on the Ottoman world, namely the "Annales Sultanorum Othmanidarum, a turcis sua lingua scripti," (Frankfurt, 1588 and 1596; German edition "Neuwe Chronica," Frankfurt, 1590), and "Historiae musulmanae Turcorum, de monumentis ipsorum excriptae, libri XVIII," (Frankfurt, 1591: German edition "Neuwer musulmanischer Histori," Frankfurt, 1590 and 1595), represent a turning point in the European scholarship on the Orient due to the variety of sources, both Turkish and European, he was able to consult for his history.
Octavian Negoita
Coesfeld Wittenberg, Heidelberg Torino, Basel, Istanbul Vienna
Bertrandon de la Broquière (1400?-1459) was a member of the Burgundian courtly pomp (as "premier écuyer tranchant") as well as a spy and pilgrim travelling to the Middle East (1432–33) on behalf of the Duke Philip III the Good for the purpose of facilitating a new crusade. He is mainly known for his "Voyage d'Outre-Mer", copied by Jean Miélot in the superbly enluminated codex Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 9087.
Jean Miélot was an author, translator, manuscript illuminator, scribe and priest, who served as secretary to Philip the Good and Charles the Bold, Dukes of Burgundy. He was mainly employed in the production of luxurious illuminated manuscripts and the translation of many works, both religious and secular.
Alastair Hamilton, ‘David Friedrich Megerlin’, in: David Thomas and John Chesworth (eds.), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Vol. 14. Central and Eastern Europe (1700-1800) (Leiden, 2020), pp. 187-91.
Following the study of Hebrew and theology in Tübingen, Megerlin, a Master of theology, taught and assumed pastoral duties at several institutions. At first as an instructor at the Tübinger Stift (a seminary for Lutheran pastors) 1725-9, followed by an appointment as schoolmaster and pastor in Montbéliard. This was followed by an appointment as preacher, and then pastor in Maulbronn and a deanery in Güglingen (1748). Dismissed of his ecclesiastical duties the following year after accusations of embezzlement, Megerlin retired to Laubach and later moved to Frankfurt, where he spent the final years of his life.
Megerlin, who had pronounced Pietistic sympathies, was a staunch defender of Lutheran teaching and a champion of missionary work among Jews and Muslims. In 1772 he published his German Qur’an translation – the first in German to be made directly from the Arabic.
Asaph Ben Tov
Königsbronn Tübingen Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main
Born jewish and converted to Christianity, Petrus Alfonsi is a key actor in the transmission of Arabic scientific, literary and religious texts to Latin Europe in the early 12th century.
Originally from a simple provincial background, Antoine Galland became a respected scholar of Oriental languages, manuscript collector and antiquarian. He lived in Istanbul, collaborating with the French embassy and collecting Oriental manuscripts for Colbert for about 18 years (1670-1688). He is known to have translated the Qur'an in its entirety at the end of his life (see F. Bauden) but the translation itself is now lost. Another partial translation has been found among his papers after his death (see BnF Fr25280). He is most famously known for his translation of the Arabian Nights (Les Mille et Une Nuit; 12 volumes, 1704-1717) which was hugely successful and ushered the fashion of the Oriental tale in Europe.
Emmanuelle Stefanidis
Rollot Paris, Istanbul Paris, Caen, Istanbul Paris
Daniel Cyranka, "David Nerreter", in David Thomas and John Chesworth (eds.), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Biographical History. Vol. 14 Central and Eastern Europe (1700-1800), Leiden, 2020, pp. 104-11; Daniel Cyranka, Mahomet. Repräsentationen des Propheten in deutschsprachigen Texten des 18. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen, 2018, pp. 124-46.
David Nerreter, who studied in Altdorf, in is native Franconia and in Königsberg (Prussia) was a Lutheran clergyman. Since his ordination in 1674, Nerreter served in numerous posts in Franconia and later in Pomerania, where he served as general superintendent and later as consistorial councillor.
In addition to his ecclesiastical posts, Nerreter was crowned poet laureate in 1670 and joined the Pegnesischer Blumenorden, a prominent literary society. He had pronounced Pietist sympathies and published numerous theological and edifying works. Among them German translations (and elaborations) of Alexander Ross’ Pansebeia (1652). His rendering of the portion of Ross’ work dealing with Islam was accompanied by Nerreter’s own German translation of the Qur’an made from Ludovico Marracci’s Latin (1698).
Samuel Purchas (1577-1626) is mainly remembered for his travel narrative published under the title "Purchas, his Pilgrimage". Purchas, however, never set foot outside of England and his account is entirely based on second-hand sources. His writings combine scientific curiosity, confessional tropes (a refute of Catholicism and a defense of the Church of England), and a celebration of English mercantilism.
Archdeacon of the diocese of Pamplona, Canon of Santa Maria de Tudela
Robertus Ketensis, Robertus Ketinensis, Robertus Retinensis, Robertus Retenensis, Robertus Anglicus, Robertus Anglus, Robertus Castrensis, Robertus Cestrensis, Robertus Anatensis, Robertus Astrensis
G. Podskalsky, Griechische Theologie in der Zeit der Türkenherrschaft, 1453-1821. Die Orthodoxie im Spannungsfeld der nachreformatorischen Konfessionen des Westens , Munich, 1988, pp. 98-101; Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, "Pachōmios Rousanos", in: D. Thomas & J. Chestworth (eds.), Christian-Muslim Relations Online II, Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2022
Rousanos an Athonite hieromonk. He was one of the most renowned Greek intellectuals of his time, a well-known polemist and rigorous theologian, who cared for the cultural and religious situation of his fellow Orthodox under the Ottoman rule.
Octavian Negoita
Pigdakia Zakynthos, Venice Mount Athos, Lesbos, Chios Nafpaktos, Epiros
צבי חיים רעקענדארף, Ḥayyim Ẓevi Ben Solomon, Herrmann Reckendorf
Leipzig
Leipzig University
Heidelberg
Heidelberg University
Trebitsch
1825
1875
Sel M., "Reckendorf, Hermann (Ḥayyim Ẓevi Ben Solomon)", in Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. 10, 1905, p. 343. Paudice A., "Hebrew Translations and Transcriptions of the Qur'an", in Meddeb A. and Stora B. (eds), A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations from the Origin to the Present Day, Princeton University Press, 2013, 640-652. Afif N. "De Leipzig à Fès: une copie sépharade de la traduction hébraïque du Coran d’Hermann Reckendorf", in BABELAO: Electronic Journal for Ancient and Oriental Studies, 9 (2020), p. 147-160.
Hermann (or Herrmann) Reckendorf (1825-1875), also known by the Hebrew name of צבי חיים בן שלמה was a German orientalist and author, son of Salomon Reckendorf, rabbi of the town of Trebitsch in Moravia. Reckendorf studied history in Leipzig and later became a professor of Semitic languages at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of the first direct translation of the Quran in Hebrew from Arabic. He also authored a five-volume fictionalized Jewish history, "Die Geheimnisse der Juden" (1856/1857) and of a biography of Moses, "Das Leben Mosis" (1868 ). Since these two works are written in German, it seems that Reckendorf's Hebrew translation of the Quran is his only work in Hebrew language. He is the father of his homonym Hermann Reckendorf (1893-1923), who was also an orientalist, and mostly know for his Arabische Syntax (1921).
Maximos Margounios (1549-1602) was one of the most prominent intellectuals and theologians of his time. He was a supporter of the Orthodox ecclesiastical Union with Catholic Rome and he wrote extensively on the theological issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit. He was a teacher at the Greek School of Venice where he had as a student the notorious Patriarch of Constantinople Kyrilos Loukaris. He remarked himself also as a copyist of manuscripts.
Gerardus Joannes Vossius, Oratio in obitum Clarissimi ac praestantissimi viri, Thomae Erpenii [...] (Lugduni Batavorum: Ex officina Erpeniana, 1625); M. Th. Houtsma, Uit de oostersche correspondentie van Th. Erpenius, Jac. Golius en Lev. Warner (Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1887), ; Wilhelmina M. C. Juynboll, Zeventiende-eeuwsche Beoefenaars van het Arabisch in Nederland (Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon, 1931), 59-118; Robert Jones, "Thomas Erpenius (1584-1624) on the Value of the Arabic Language", in Manuscripts of the Middle East, 1 (1986), pp. 15-25; Alastair Hamilton, "Isaac Casaubon the Arabist", in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 72 (2009), pp. 143-168; Arnoud Vrolijk, "The Prince of Arabists and His Many Errors. Thomas Erpenius’s Image of Joseph Scaliger and the Edition of the Proverbia Arabica (1614)", in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 73 (2010), 297-325; Alastair Hamilton, "The Long Apprenticeship: Casaubon and Arabic", in Anthony Grafton and Johanna Weinberg, “I have always loved the Holy Tongue.” Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 293-306; Arnoud Vrolijk and Richard van Leeuwen, Alastair Hamilton, tr., Arabic Studies in the Netherlands: A Short History in Portraits, 1580–1950 (Leiden: Brill, 2013); Arnoud Vrolijk and Johann Weinberg, "Thomas Erpenius, " ; Robert Jones, Learning Arabic in Renaissance Europe (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2020); Arnoud Vrolijk and Joanna Weinberg, ""
Thomas Erpenius is virtually the first professor of Arabic at Leiden University. He was appointed the extraordinary professor of Arabic in 1613.
He was a Syriac Orthodox priest and a legate of the Syrian-Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius ʻAbdallāh in the course of his first two missions in Rome and Europe (1549-1550, 1551-1556) to negotiate the unification of his Church to the Holy See. He was a very active scribe during those periods and cooperated with European orientalists as a language teacher (Syriac and Arabic) and cultural mediator. He had an important role in the edition of the Syriac New Testament in collaboration with Johan Albrecht Widmanstetter and Guillaume Postel (Vienna, 1555). During his last mission to Rome in 1577, he was not an official Patriarchal legate, and his figure was discredited by the newly dismissed Patriarch Ignatius Niʻmatallāh who arrived in Rome with him. From 1581 to 1585 he was mentioned among the teachers of the college of the Neophytes. He collaborated with the Bishop of Sidon Leonardo Abel on translating Qur'anic Christological passages and compiled 2 lexicons of Qur'an terms and phrases in Garšūnī.
Active in Rome since 1578, under the protection of Cardinal Santoro, patron of the Orientals. Due to his knowledge of various oriental languages, he was named interpreter and confessor for the Roman Curia in the Arabic language and Syriac. At his arrival he started to learn written Arabic from the Neophyte Domenico Sirleto, then substituted as teacher by Moses of Mārdīn. He was chosen by Pope Gregory XIII as an envoy to the Eastern Churches (Jacobite, Chaldean, Melkite, Coptic and Armenian) to carry out the negotiations for the reunification and the acceptance of the new calendar, and in this occasion he was appointed bishop of Sidon (1582). His apostolic nunciature lasted from 1583 to 1587, the year of his return to Rome without great results, but having collected numerous manuscripts during his travels. He was also a copyist and commissioned various copies of manuscripts, and was himself author of texts of various genre. He was involved in different cultural and editorial projects promoted by the Holy See, in particular the edition, with translation and confutation, of the Qur'an (never realized), and the edition of the Arabic Gospels, both promoted by the Typographia Medicea.
Joan Gabriel, Johan Gabriel, Ioannes Gabriel Terrolensis, Ali Alayzar
Zaragoza, Barcelona, Teruel, Valencia
1502
1525
Oldest document about him talks about his conversion in 1502 with the Mudéjar community of Teruel. He seems to be in the company of Joan Marti Figuerola. He translates the Qur'an for Egidio de Viterbo.
Johann Albrecht von Widmanstetter, Johann Albert Widmanstetter, Hans Albrecht Widmannstetter, Johannes Albertus Widmanstadius, Widmestadius, Johann Albrecht Widmanstadt, Johann Albrecht Widmannstätter, Lucretius, Oesiander
Prolific and influential Persian author and poet, religious scholar, preacher, Ṣūfī, and occultist of the Tīmūrid-era. He spent most of his life in Herat, where he was associated with the court of Sulṭān Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr b. Bayqara (r. 1469-1506). Kāšifīʼs confessional orientation is controversial: some scholars (especially Šīʻī) supported the idea that he was Šīʻī on the base of his hometown (Sabzavār, a well known šīʻī center), and of some of his compositions particularly devoted to the Ahl al-Bayt, for example Rawḍat al-šuhadāʼ, an ʻAlid martyrology that focuses largely on Imām Ḥusayn. He was also a transmitter of šīʻī works. But despite his evident sympathies for the Ahl al-Bayt, and the imāms, in his works he drew frequently on Šīʻī as well as Sunnī traditions. Moreover, he was affiliated to the Ṣūfī order of the Naqšbandiyya, famous for its adherence to Sunnism, especially of the Ḥanafī variety. His affinity for the imāms descended from Ḥusayn b. ʻAlī can be easily explained by his adherence to occultism, as they were regarded as repositories of esoteric knowledge and occult texts. Part of his works are adaptations or translations from Arabic, that he wanted to make accessible to a wider Persian audience; they became very popular especially for his rhetorical flair, and esoteric and mystical inclinations. His approach to the Qurʼanic text shows nuances of occultism and mysticism: before 1483 he embarked on the project of composing a Lettrist commentary (based on the symbolism of letters and numbers) on the Qurʼan (Ǧavāhir al-tafsīr li-tuḥfat al-Amīr). He completed only the first chapters, then, in 1491, he abandoned the project in favor of the shorter commentary Mavāhib-i ʻaliyya (or Tafsīr-i Ḥusaynī). He also wrote on prophetic traditions, and attributes, on ṣufism, astrology, rhetoric, occult sciences, alchemy among other subjects.
Jancsó Imre (1793–1848) was a 19th-century Hungarian government official. His role as a bibliophile and patron of Hungarian literature and history is acknowledged in library history research. He assembled a significant private library of mainly Hungarian-related rare books and manuscripts. His book collection was sold by his widow to the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1850.
Alice-Mary Talbot, "John VI Kantakouzenos", in: The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Vol. 2, ed. by A. Kazhdan (New York / Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1050-51; Klaus-Peter Todt, Kaiser Johannes VI. Kantakuzenos und der Islam. Politische Realität und theologische Polemik im palaiologenzeitlichen Byzanz (Würzburg / Echter: Altenberge / Oros Verlag, 1991); Donald M. Nicol, The Reluctant Emperor. A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295-1383 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Klaus-Peter Todt, "John VI Cantacuzenus", in: Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, Vol. 5: (1350-1500), ed. by D. Thomas and A. Mallett (Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2013), 165-178.
John VI Cantacuzenus was one of the most renowned Byzantine emperors, who remarked himself not only as a statesman but also as a fine theologian and historian. During his tumultuous reign (1347-1354) he engaged in close relations with the Ottomans and was involved into the Church Synods that affirmed the Orthodoxy of the Hesychast theology promoted by the Byzantine archbishop of Thessaloniki, Gregory Palamas. After his abdication in 1354, John VI took the monastic vows and entered the monastic community first of the Mangana Monastery and then of Charsianites Monastery, both located in Constantinople. Here he wrote his famous History and polemical works against Islam and the Jewish faith.
Klaus-Peter Todt, Johannes VI. Kantakuzenos und der Islam: Politische Realität und theologische Polemik im palaiologenzeitlichen Byzanz (Würzburg / Echter: Altenberge / Oros Verlag, 1991), 135.
Tommasino, P. M., "Bulghaith al-Darawi and Barthélemy d’Herbelot: Readers of the Qur’an in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany", in Journal of Qur’anic Studies (2018) 20, 3, pp. 94-120; Santus, C., Il «turco» a Livorno. Incontri con l’Islam nella Toscana del Seicento, Officina Libraia, Roma, 2019, pp. 141-145
Bernhard von Breydenbach held high ecclesiastical and juridical offices and achieved his career as the dean of the Mainz's cathedral. In 1483-1484, he visited as a pilgrim the Holy Land and the Sinai Peninsula.
de Vries, Susanna, “Voltaire”, in: Christian-Muslim Relations 1500 - 1900, General Editor David Thomas. Consulted online on 02 June 2022 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451-9537_cmrii_COM_29779>
One of the most influential French philosophers of the 18th century
Reader of George Sale's Koran, Voltaire had some writtings about Islam, the Prophet and the Qur'an.
A German-born Orientalist scholar, Levinus Warner is today best remembered for his outstanding collection of oriental manuscripts now in Leiden University Library. Among his large collection of manuscripts, there are three Qur'an manuscripts. Some of his notebooks are also dedicated to studying the Qur'an.
It has now been established that John Mandeville is a fictional character. However, it is difficult to establish with certainty whether there is a basis of truth to his stories or not.
The literary persona explains that he was originally from St Albans (UK) and set sail on 29 September 1322. His journey, which took him from the Holy Land to China, lasted 34 years.
During his Patriarchate he was involved in the negotiation for the reunification of his Church with the Roman one. He fled from Amid following disputes with the Ottoman authorities and took refuge in Rome. There, he was welcomed for his scientific and linguistic skills and was involved in various pontifical cultural projects under Gregorius XIII, such as the reform of the calendar, the teaching of oriental languages, and the publishing activities of the Typographia Medicea, founded in 1584 by Cardinal Ferdinando de 'Medici. He sold his precious collection of manuscripts to him in exchange for a pension for life, and it constituted the original nucleus of the collection of the Medici typography. Among his manuscripts were philological rarities of different genres, but also copies of the Qur'an, which were available to Giovanni Battista Raimondi, scientific director of Typographia Medicea, and his collaborators.
A judge and "podestà" originary from Mantua, with a rich humanistic culture, Antonio da Crema (1435-1489) is also the author of an "Itinerario al Santo Sepolcro" particulary interesting for its references to Islam and the Qur'an, echoing Riccoldo da Monte di Croce's "Contra legem sarracenorum".
Active between Perugia and Rome from 1530 to 1580, Mambrino Roseo was a prolific author and translator, reminded here for his "Selva di varia lezione", the Italian translation of Pedro Mexía's spanish "Silva de varia lección", containing some chapters about Muhammad and Islam.
Typical encyclopaedist Renaissance intellectual, Pedro Mexía is the author of the "Silva de varia lección" (1540), a collection of prose on various subjects (history, customs, superstitions, mythology, etc.) repeatedly printed and translated, which contains interesting chapters about Muhammad and Islam, with qur'anic references.
A prolific writer and controversialist, Alexander Ross has been commonly identified, included by George Sale in 1734, as the anonymous translator of Du Ryer's "L'Alcoran de Mahomet" (1647).
"The Alcoran of Mahomet", printed in London in 1649, constituted the first rendition of the Qur'an into English. While the attribution of the translation to Alexander Ross has since been disputed (Feingold 2012 and 2016, Malcolm 2014), Ross did write one of its paratexts, namely a 14-page justification for the publication of the Alcoran entitled "A Needful Caveat or Admonition for them who desire to know what use may be made of, or if there be danger in reading the Alcoran". Despite the polemical tone of Ross's "Caveat", his true motivation for supporting the translation of the Qur'an into English remains unclear and has been the object of contradictory interpretations (see, for a useful summary, Clinton in Thomas & Chesworth 2016).
Ross is also the author of a popular religious catalogue, "Pansebeia. Or a View of All the Religions in the World"(1653), in which he dedicated a large section to Islam.
Claude Duret is author of a number of treatises on a variety of subjects (history, botanics, languages).
His most famous book is the Thresor des Langues, which was partly inspired by the kabbalistic theory of language of Guillaume Postel.
Michel Baudier, born in Languedoc, was a historiographer of the royal court of the King Louis XIII. He is the author of five books on the Orient, based on secondary sources. He is unlikely to have travelled to the Orient or to have mastered Oriental languages except Hebrew, although there is some uncertainty concerning his life. His most famous book, the "Histoire generale de la religion des Turcs", is one of the first works in the French language solely devoted to the Islamic religion.
Egyptian scholar and ṣūfī. He wrote on several subjects (fiqh, tafsīr, ḥadīṯ, taṣawwūf...) including taǧwīd (the recitation of Qur'ān) commenting on a work by al-Ǧazarī. Copies of these two works are found in Western libraries, as they have been studied by European Orientalists, such as Giovanni Battista Raimondi, scientific director of the Typographia Medicea (Rome 1584), as means to learn and teach Arabic.
Son of an Arab-Spanish rabbi, he converted to Catholicism shortly before 1470. From 1470 he studied medicine at the University of Naples. Around 1477 he moved to Rome, where, for his knowledge of oriental languages and kabbalistic literature, he won the esteem of card. Giovan Battista Cybo (the future Innocent VIII) and Sixtus IV, and entered into a relationship with Federico di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino: for the latter he translated into Latin different Arabic texts including two suras of the Qur'an (BAV, Urb. Lat . 1384). In 1482 he was teaching theology and oriental languages at Sapienza. Forced to leave Italy by an obscure crime, he went to Cologne, then to Louvain and Basel. Called in 1486 by the humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in Perugia, he taught him the oriental languages and introduced him to the secrets of the Kabbalah. His translations for Pico della Mirandola greatly influenced the entire Florentine culture of the time, and are also reflected in some aspects of Marsilio Ficino's work.
Franco dei Russi was a manuscript illustrator of the Early Renaissance. Between 1463 and 1465 he worked in Ferrara, Mantua, Venice, and Padua; from 1474 to 1482 he was the official illuminator for the great library of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and decorated the codex BAV, Urb. lat. 1384, containing the Arabic-Latin translation of the suras XXI and XXII of the Qur'an by Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada, and the latter's translations of other Arabic astrological texts in the same codex.
He was calligrapher at the court of pope Sixtus IV, where he copied the Latin sections of the codex BAV, Urb. Lat. 1384 (ca. 1480-1482) containing the Arabic-Latin version of the Qur'an made by Raimondo Moncada. He was previously calligrapher in Naples at the court of Alfonso of Aragon, starting from 1448.
He was one of the most successful mercenary captains (condottieri) of the Italian Renaissance, and lord of Urbino from 1444 (Duke from 1474) until his death. He was also a famous intellectual humanist and patron, and commissioned the building of a great library with his own scriptorium. For him, Raimondo Moncada compiled a partial translation of the Qur'an (suras 21 and 22) to obtain his support for a complete edition, which was never accomplished. The copy was realized by professional calligraphers and miniaturists and includes also copies and translations of other Arabic texts.
He was a Catholic theologian known for his writings opposing the Protestant Reformation and the growing Anabaptist movement. He was in a close friendship with Erasmus. In 1529 he traveled alongside Emperor Charles V to England, seeking the expected help of Henry VIII in the war against the Turks. He founded the Kollegium St. Nikolaus in Vienna, where some of his books ended up; among them is a composite codex containing various polemical texts against Islam that shows his ex-libris (Cod. Vodobonensis Palatinus 11879).
al-Bazzī, Abū al-Ḥasan Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allah b. Abī Bazza
Qur'ānic Reader
Muqri', Mu'aḏḏin, Muḥaqqiq, Ḍābiṭ, Muttaqin
al-Bazzī, Ibn al-Bazzī, Bazzī
Mecca
786
864
Hardly ever we find information about his biography, and when so we just read that he was one of the seven canonical transmitters of the Qur'ān, who transmitted from Ibn Kathīr ("ʿan Ibn Kathīr").
Ḥamza b. Ḥabīb b. ʿUmāra b. Ismāʿīl, Abū ʿUmāra al-Taymī al-Kūfī al-Zayyāt
Muqri'
Merchant
Ḥamza al-Zayyāt
Kufa
Hulwan
699
Hulwan
772
He was one of the seven canonical transmitters of Qur'ān. A mawlā of the family of ʿIkrima b. Ribʿī al-Taymī, he became a merchant. From here arises his surname al-Zayyāt, he transported oil from Kūfa to Ḥulwān and cheese and nuts from Ḥulwān to Kūfa.
He settled in Kūfa and became familiar with ḥadith and farā'īḍ on which we find a "Kitāb al-Farā'īḍ" probably collected by his pupils.
Among his pupils: Sufyān al-Thawrī and al-Kisā'ī, but his reading of the Qur'ān, which was put together in "Kitāb Qirā'āt Ḥamza" ("Fihrist": 44) and which was criticized by Ibn Ḥanbal and Ibn ʿAyyāsh, was transmitted by his immediate disciples: Khalaf b. Hishām (767-843) at Baghdād and Khallād b. Khālid (d. 835) at Kūfa.
His reading became popular and has become quite widespread in the Maghrib.
al-Kisā'ī, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ḥamza b. ʿAbd Allah al-Asadī
Muqri': iqrā'
Grammarian
Bahman b. Fayrūz; surnamed: Abū ʿAbd Allah; and: Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ḥamza of al-Kūfa
Kufa
Kufa
737
Ranbuya
805
He was _mawlā_ of the Banū Asad, well known Arab philologist and Qur'ān-reader.
Descendant of an Iranian family from the Sawād, he was born in Bāḥamshā, Dujayl, north of Baghdād and when still a boy came to al-Kūfa. We find in relations about him that he was not good in _ʿarabiyya_ and therefore wanted to attach himself to the grammarian Muʿādh al-Ḥarrā'. Besides, he spent some time among the Bedouins in order to become fully conversant with the secrets of the _ʿarabiyya_ by direct association with them, under advice of his teacher al-Khalīl.
This was also probably the reason which made him diverge from other grammarians who sought and treated learned systematisation. al-Kisā'ī attributed more importance to linguistic usage, as aspired by Sībawayhī (also al-Khalīl's pupil) in his famous "al-Kitāb". He followed a method based on analogy (_qiyās_) which was generally accepted and presented with it a wide range of anomalous colloquial speeches and dialects. Therefore, he paid attention not to mix these colloquial forms with the general rule and gave a fundamental contribution in letting these dialectal expressions survive till nowadays for us to be read.
al-Kisā'ī's methodological approach and that of his followers (i.e. al-Farrā', his pupil) became the most independent among Kūfans during the controversies between al-Mubarrad and Thaʿlab in Baghdād; thus, _ex-eventu_, to him and to his teacher, al-Ruʾāsī, is attributed the foundation of the grammatical school of Kūfa.
None of his long list of works enumerated in the "Fihrist", by Ibn al-Nadīm, arrived to us. Nevertheless, we find a good account of his linguistic positions in works by al-Zajjājī and Ibn al-Anbārī and others. The latter, reported systematically al-Kisā'ī's positions in grammatical and linguistic arguments in his "Kitāb al-Inṣāf fī Masā'il al-Khilāf bayna al-Naḥwiyyīna al-Baṣriyyīna wa-l-Kūfiyyīna".
He was the seventh of the Qur'ān transmitters whose reading was accepted. He received the reading from Ḥamza al-Zayyāt but eventually adapted it to his own way of reading. This allowed him also to entertain good relations with the ʿAbbāsid caliphal court: al-Mahdī entrusted to him the education of his young son al-Rashīd, who in his turn later caused his sons al-Amīn and al-Ma'mūn to be taught by al-Kisā'ī.
Raymond of Penyafort worked extensively on the conversion of the Moors in the Dominican Order. He also founded the studium arabicum of Tunis where Ramon Martí worked.
Pierre Courtain
Vilafranca del Penedès Bologna Barcelona Barcelona
Ibn al-Bawwāb lived in the Buwayhid period. His attachment to the vizier Fakhr al-Mulk Abū Ghālib Muḥammad b. Khalaf (d. 27 Rabīʿ I 407/3 September 1016) made him a frequenter of the governmental circles; he was also in charge of the library of the Buwayhid Bahā' al-Dawla at Shīrāz. He was a devote man and knew the Qur'ān by heart and reportedly reproduced sixty-four copies of it. He had knowledge also of law and letters.
His fame as calligrapher is unrecorded before him. He was fluent in all six scripts and refined his predecessor's, the vizier Ibn Muqla (d. 10 Shawwāl 328/20 July 940), "proportioned script" (al-khaṭṭ al-mansūb).
Yāqūt al-Mustaʿṣimī, Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Durr b. ʿAbd Allāh
Calligrapher
Librarian
Qiblat al-Kuttāb
Yāqūt-i Mustaʿṣimī
Baghdad
Caliphal Court
Baghdad
Caliphal Court
1298
Amasia
1221
Baghdad
1298
Yāqūt is the last big name as for Arabic calligraphers. He was student of ʿAlī b. Hilāl, better known as Ibn al-Bawwāb (d. 413/1022).
Not only Yāqūt mastered all the scriptural styles proper of Ibn al-Bawwāb, but he also refined them, creating his own style: the "yāqūtī" style. Ibn Muqla (d. 329/941) used to write with a straight cut reed pen, which was eventually substituted by Yāqūt by an oblique cut which made calligraphy more elegant.
His calligraphy had been taken as model especially by the Ottomans and the Persians during the thirteenth century; he was surnamed "qiblat al-kuttāb" (model of calligraphers).
Yāqūt was a eunuch, taken as slave by the last ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mustaʿṣim (from here his name "al-Mustaṣimī"), who took charge of his education. Yāqūt spent his whole life in Baghdād, under the ʿAbbāsids first and eventually under the Mongols.
Some manuscripts seem to be attributable to him nowadays, although deep researches still need to be done, since a lot of contemporary Yāqūt's students were authorised to sign manuscripts with his signature, creating a big confusion for present studies:
- Qur'ān dated 681/1282-3, parts 2 and 12, Topkapi Saray Library, Istanbul, EH227, EH226;
- part 8, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, ms. 1452;
- part 15, Nasser D. Khalili Collection, London;
- Qurʾān, dated 688/1289, BnF, 6716, Paris;
- and possibly Qurʾān, dated 693/1294, Topkapi Saray Library, Istanbul, EH74 and Āstān-i Ḳuds Library, Mas̲h̲had, Faḍāʾilī, p. 202.
Calligrapher, Collector of land-taxes, Secretary in central administration, person in charge of the dīwān of real estates
Baghdad
Fars, Baghdad
Government (Vizierate)
928
936
Baghdad
885
Baghdad
940
Ibn Muqla had a complicated political life. He had renewed his vizierate twice (928–930, 932–933 and 934–936). He started as a home-taxes collector in the region of Fārs and then was appointed his vizierates in Baghdād where he lived and participated in religious life, giving effective support to the Sunnī reaction which took plce after the end of the caliphate of al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932).
Ibn Rā'iq opposed Ibn Muqla when the former became amīr al-umarā' by confiscating the possessions of the latter. He, nevertheless, suceeded in letting the caliph imprisoning Ibn Rā'iq and cutting his right hand off. Some time later, when the amīr Bajkam was coming to Baghdād, Ibn Muqla's tongue was cut out, and he died, neglected in prison on 10 shawwāl 328/20 July 940.
Ibn Muqla was also a famous calligrapher, inventor of the "proportioned script" ("al-khaṭṭ al-mansūb") which was later improved by Ibn al-Bawwāb, and is attributed to him also the invention of the thuluth script – in addition to five other styles, including naskh which eventually superseded kūfī in Qur'ānic transmission script.
None of Ibn Muqla's authentic work exists today, his work is only known through other sources like Ibn al-Nadīm.
R. Hoche, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. 33 p. 239.
Born in Cobourg and educated at the town’s Latin school, Schwartz studied in Jean (1696), Halle, and Leipzig (1703). He was a student of the famous theologian and philosopher Johann Franz Budde (Buddeus). He was appointed extraordinary professor of Latin at the Cobourg Casimirianum in 1706 and in 1713 became professor of rhetoric and Greek there. In 1732 he was appointed professor of theology and oriental languages at the Casimirianum – as well as serving as headmaster. He was also made doctor of theology in Altdorf. Schwartz died in 1747. He published extensively, mostly on Latin and Greek grammar. Among his works are two treatises concerning the Qur’an: an “exposing plagiarism” in the Qur’an (1711) and, more strikingly, a treatise of 1719 in which Schwartz traces in the Qur’an what he believes are genuine Abrahamic philosophical arguments for the existence of God.
He was a Franciscan friar who took part in the Morean War. He was the last Preacher of the Papal Household of the Franciscan order (then the position was reserved to the Capuchins), before being appointed Bishop of Trogir (Croatia) in 1713. During the siege of Koroni (GR) in Morea he looted a copy of the Qur'an (BML, Or. 233) from the Great Mosque of the city and in 1686 donated it to the church of Santa Maria di Araceli in Rome where it was hung off an altar dedicated to S. Giovanni da Capestrano.
He was a trader and a coirier involved in the activity of the Typographia Medicea of Rome at the end of the 16th century; he was possibly one of the occasional providers of oriental manuscripts, as a note on ms BML, Or. 402 suggests.
Roberto Tottoli, “The Latin Translation of the Qur’ān by Johann Zechendorff (1580–1662) Discovered in Cairo Dār al-Kutub. A Preliminary Description’, Oriente Moderno 95, 2015, 5-31. Reinhod Glei, “A presumed lost Latin translation of the Qur’ān (Johann Zechendorff, 1632)”, Neulateinisches Jahrbuch. Journal of Neo-Latin Language and Literature 18 (2016), 361-72. Asaph Ben-Tov, “Johann Zechendorff (1580-1662) and Arabic Studies at Zwickau’s Latin School”, in: Jan Loop, Alastair Hamilton, and Charles Burnett (eds.), The Teaching and Learning of Arabic in Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2017), pp. 57-92.
Zechendorff was born in 1580 in the Ore Mountain Region (Erzgebirge), in the small town of Lößnitz. His father, Michael Zechendorff was a school-teacher there and later in nearby Schneeberg, where Zechendorff himself would later become headmaster. Zechendorff seems to have studies Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac at the Latin school on Schneeberg. The study of Arabic, which would prove his true passion, came in his forties. He later also taught himself Persian and Turkish. Among his manuscripts (Ratsschulbibliothek, Zwickau) is a Persian grammar. After studying at the University of Leipzig, he taught at the Latin school in Schneeberg before moving to becoming headmaster at the municipal Latin school in Zwickau, a post he kept for the remainder of his long life.
Zechendorff is today best remembered for his pioneering scholarly engagement with the Qur’an, closely related to his Lutheran piety His attraction to the Qur’an seems to have been motivated by his fascination with its form of monotheistic poetic expression, rather than a systematic concern for point of theology. The limited scope of his published work on the Qur’an gives us only a partial picture of his scholarly and pedagogical enthusiasm for Arabic and for the Qur’an in particular. A fuller picture is offered by his manuscript Nachlass preserved to a great extent in Zwickau at the municipal Latin-school library (Ratsschulbibliothek). Among his papers are also an unpublished Latin grammar, a Persian Grammar, as well as several short printed works meant to assist students learning oriental languages and his unpublished translation of the entire Qur’an (preserved in Dar al-Kutub, Cairo – see Tottoli 2015).
He was a kazasker (Ottoman military judge), a musician, and a well-known calligrapher. At a young age he was an apprentice in the mausoleum of ʻAlī Pasha in Istanbul, then in the imperial palace during the reign of Sultan Maḥmūd II to study sciences, calligraphy, music; he received the diploma for the calligraphic styles ṯulṯ and nasḫ from Muṣṭafà al-Wāṣif and for the taʻlīq from ʻIzzat Yasārī. He spent a period of his life in Cairo but then moved back to Istanbul where, in 1839, he had the role of preacher in the Eyüp Sultan mosque. Numerous calligraphic works of him have survived, including, a Qur'an copied for Sultan ʻAbd al-Maǧīd (r. 1839-1861) and dated ǧumadā I 1264 H (May 1848) preserved in the Chester Beatty Library (Ms 1568); another copy of the Qur'an signed by him was donated to Vittorio Emanuele II king of Italy in 1869 by the Italian typographer Mosè Castelli, active in Cairo.
He was born in Florence in 1816 from where, in 1832, he left for Egypt where he resided for most of his life. He founded a printing house in Cairo which produced more than 200 printed works in Arabic (typographies and lithographs, the oldest dated 1852) named al-Maṭbaʻa al-Kastilliyya; he donated copies of these to Vittorio Emanuele II, King of Italy in 1869, together with a small group of manuscripts now preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. At his death his business was continued for a certain period by one of his sons, Leone, before being sold to another Italian, Luigi Vasai who around 1915 gave it to the Egyptians.
He was King of Sardinia from 1849 until 17 March 1861, when he assumed the title of King of Italy and became the first king of an independent, united Italy since the 6th century, a title he held until his death in 1878. In 1869 the Italian typographer, active in Cairo, Mosè Castelli, donated to him copies of his published Arabic editions, together with a small group of Arabic manuscripts, that the King donated to the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, at that time capital of the Kingdom of Italy.
He was an Italian Roman Catholic cardinal who served as the Bishop of Bergamo and later as the Bishop of Padua. He was a frontrunner in both the 1689 and 1691 papal conclaves as he had distinguished himself for his diplomatic and scholastic service, especially for the reunification of the Oriental Churches. In 1664 he reformed the Seminary of Padua for the education of the clergy, including the teaching of oriental languages such as Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. From 1684 the Seminary had itsown Typography, provided with Oriental types obtained from the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III (previously used for the editions of the Typographia Medicea) and from cardinal Federico Borromeo; there he promoted the edition of the Alcoranus Textus Universus (Prodromus and Refutatio Alcorani) by Ludovico Marracci, which was printed in 1698, one year after Barbarigo's death.
Thedoricus (Dietrich) Hackspan was a Lutheran orientalist and theologian. His theological stance was influenced by his former teacher, the Helmsted irenicist Georg Calixt (1586-1656). His scholarly interests included Biblical and later Rabbinical Hebrew as well as a study of Arabic and, by the standards of his day, a remarkable study of the Qur'an, which he studied systematically to reconstruct what he took to be the theological framework of Islam.
Owner of BSB cod.arab 2 and 3. The Nasrid ruler Muhammad II of Granada gave him in 1293 a so called "'Uthmanic" copy of the Qur'an to forgive his attitude.
See Rawd al-Qirtas.
Johann Andreas Michael Lange studied and then taught at the University of Altdorf. Since 1740 he taught oriental languages, metaphysics and rhetoric as a professor in the philosophical faculty. His scholarly output (mostly in the form of academic dissertations) is extensive and varied. Among these is a dissertation on the study of Greek philosophy among the Arabs (1745) and an extensive dissertation on the Surat al-Fatiha (1743).
Johann Michael Lange, a Lutheran theologian with very broad interests, had served as a Lutheran pastor before attaining the Dr. theol. and being appointed professor of theology in Altdorf in 1697. In 1709 he was dismissed from the university due to his Pietistic leanings and sympathy for Chiliasm. He spent the rest of his life as a pastor in Brandenburg. During his tenure in Altdorf he published several works on Islam and the Qur'an.
Wagenseil, a polyhistor, was one of the most prominent hebraists of the later seventeenth century. An avid champion of missionary work among Jews and exposing the "blasphemous" anti-Christian aspects of rabbinical writings, at the same time he was on amicable terms with many Jews and publicly rejected accusations of ritual murder levelled against Jews. A towering scholar of Jewish literature, his massive scholarly output betrays broader oriental interests, including Arabic and occasionally the Qur'an.
Born in Prussia, the son of English immigrants, Mill studied in Königsberg before moving to the Netherlands. He became Adrian Reland's student in Utrecht, where he later became a professor of Hebrew and oriental languages – later becoming a doctor of theology. Rooted in the tradition of Philologia Sacra, several of his academic wors deal with Islam and the Qur'an and their links to Judaism, seen from Mill's perspective as a Reformed biblical scholar and theologian.
“Hellenism in the Context of Oriental Studies: The Case of Johann Gottfried Lakemacher (1695–1736)”, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 25(3) (2018), pp. 297-314
After serving as adjunct at the in Helmstedt since 1718, Johann Gottfried Lakemacher (1695-1736) became professor of Greek (1724) and of Hebrew (1727). Most of his later work is concerned with questions of biblical antiquarianism and in many respects he follows in the footsteps of Jean Le Clerc. In his earlier years he had a pronounced interest in Arabic and the history of Arabic philosophy. In 1718 he published an Arabic grammar, which included Surah 14 as chrestomathy. He also published Q 2:1-14 with a Latin translation in 1721 and is reported to have intended a translation of the entire Qur'an. If he ever completed this translation is not clear and if so, it has left no trace.
Matthias George Schröder, an aspiring Leipzig orientalist, died aged 23/24 in 1719. He was a magister artium and bacc. theol.
His biography is summed up in Christian Polycarp Leporin, Das Leben der Gelehrten so in Deutschland vom Anfang des MDCCXIXten Jahrs vieles Zeitliche geseegnet. Part 1 (Quedlinburg, 1719). pp. 523-8.
Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels was known for his patronage of learning and the arts. Johann Sebastain Bach's secular Hunting Cantata was composed on the occasion of the duke's birthday (1713). The gymnasium illustre in his territory enjoyed a considerable reputation. Christian Reineccius, who became its headmaster in 1721, dedicated to the duke his edition of Marracci's Qur'an translation.
Ludovico Marracci's edition and translation of the Qur'an appeared in Padua in 1698, toward the close of the Great Turkish War, which began with the Ottoman siege of Vienna and ended in 1699 with the Treaty of Karlowitz, resulting in vast territorial gains for the Habsburgs in Eastern Europe at the expense of the Ottomans. Marracci's Qur'an is dedicated to Leopold.
Born in 1638, Richard Simon is a French exegetical scholar known as the father of historical critique of the Old and the New Testament. His innovative approach to the Bible led to his exclusion from his order, the French Oratory, and to the suppression of his first major exegetical work, Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (1678). Besides Biblical exegesis, Richard Simon had a sustained interest in the comparative study of religions. In 1675, he translated into French an account of the Levant by the jesuit Giralomo Dandini (d. 1634). The work, entitled Voyage du Mont Liban, contains Dandini's observations and Simon's own corrections and reflections with the explicit aim to redress widespread misconceptions of Muslims and Islam. His Histoire critique de la creance et des coûtmes des nations du Levant (1684) contains a dispassionate portrayal of islam and muslim customs. In 1684, he published a translation of the Venetian Rabbi Leone Modena's Ceremonies et coûtumes qui s'observent aujoud'huy parmy les Juifs (1684).
Peter Kirstenius was born in the Silesian town of Breslau (Wrocław) on 25.12.1577 the son of a wealthy merchant. After attending the Latin school in his native town (Elisabethanum) he moved to Posen in 1589 to study Polish -- with the aim of becoming a merchant. He returned to Breslau in 1591 and matriculated in Leipzig in 1596. Kirstenius became a magister artium at the Universtiy of Jena in 1599, where he also commenced his study of theology and medicine. This was followed in 1600 by an extensive peregrinatio acadmica, in the course of which he became a Dr of medicine in Basel (August 1601). It is in these early years that he evinced an interest in Avicenna and decided to study Arabic.
How he acquired his knowledge of Arabic remains unclear – possibly with the aid of a native-speaker in Italy or Spain. After marrying in 1603 he returned to Breslau where he worked as a physician. In 1610 he was appointed headmaster of the Elisabethanum, a position he kept until 1616.
Kirstenius left Breslau during the Thirty Years War (probably in 1634). He made the acquaintance of the Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna and travelled with him to Sweden. He served as royal physician and professor of medicine in Upsala until his death in April 1640.
In the decade after his return to Breslau he published a series of works concerning Arabic – the elegant Arabic types were designed by Kirstenius himself and made at his own expense.
The Breslau orientalist and physician, Peter Kirstenius (1577-1640) was married to Johann Friedrich Schröter's daughter Barbara and dedicated to him his Tria specimina (1608).
Heinrich Leuchter (1558-1623) was born in Melsungen (Hesse). He matriculated at the University of Marburg, where he studied theology under Ägidius Hunnius. In 1585 he became Dr. theol. This was followed by a pastoral appointment in Kirdorf. In 1588 he became preacher and superintendent in Marburg. He moved to Darmstadt in 1605, where he became court chaplain and superintendent (1608). He died in Darmstadt 16.8.1623.
Leuchter published a series of theological works, including a polemical theological study of the Qur'an in 1604 which relies heavily on the 1543 Basel edition of Robert of Kettons Latin rendering of the Qur'an.
Zotero: J. Wiesner, "Camman, Johann", in H.-R. Jarck et alii (eds.), Braunschweigisches biographisches Lexikon 8. bis 18. Jahrhundert (Braunschweig, 2006).
Johann Camman Jr. (1584-1649) was a lawyer and municipal councilman in Braunschweig -- as well as occasional diplomat in the service of the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. He had amassed a sizeable private library, which is now housed as a separate collection at the Braunschweig municipal library. Though not a professional orientalist, Camman, a polyglot, was keenly interested in oriental languages. His copy of several printed works, especially by Erpenius, evince a serious study of Arabic and a keen interest in the Qur'an.
Christian Benedict Michaelis (1680-1764) was the (maternal) nephew of the Halle Hebraist and Old Testament scholar Johann Heinrich Michaelis (1668-1638). He studied in Halle as well as spending a year in Frankfurt studying with and assisting the great ethiopist Hiob Ludolf (1624-1704). He went on to serve in both the philosophical and theological faculties in Halle for over five decades, dying in 1764. One of his sons was the famous Göttingen orientalist and Old Testament scholar, Johann David Michaelis (1717-1791). Among Michaelis' students in Halle was Boysen (1720-1800), who in 1775 would publish a German translation of the Qur'an.
Christoph Bultmann in NDB;Anna-Ruth Löwenbrück, “Johann David Michaelis’ Verdienst um die philologisch-historische Bibelkritik”, in: Henning Graf Reventlow, Walter Sparn and John Woodbridge (eds.), Historische Kritik und biblischer Kanon in der deutschen Aufklärung (Wiesbaden, 1988), pp. 157-70; Michael C. Legaspi, The Death of Scripture and the Rise of Biblical Studies (Oxford, 2010).
The son and student of the Halle orientalists and biblical scholar, Christian Benedict Michaelis, Johann David Michaelis was to move beyond the Halle pietist milieu of his early years. He came under the influence of Albert Schultens in Leiden and of Robert Lowth during his studies in England. In 1746 Michaelis was appointed professor at the recently founded university in Göttingen, where he would teach for the rest of his life and dominate biblical studies in Germany in the second half of the eighteenth century. Michaelis is best known today for his monumental study of Mosaic Law (Mosaisches Recht, 1770-5) and for organizing an ill-fated scientific expedition to the Middle East -- the sole survivor of which, Carsten Niebuhr (1733-1815) published an invaluable account of his travels.
St-Donaas, Cistercian monasteries of Ter Doest or Ten
1260
1288
Bruges
1230
Damme
1288
Few things are certain about Jacob van Maerlant. Most biographical information can be deduced from his works and from the few traces of him that have been found elsewhere.
The earliest biographical records tell us that Lodewijk stayed in the entourage of Duke John I of Brabant in Paris in the winter of 1293-1294.
From 1312 until his death, he was pastor in Veltem near Leuven.
We owe him the continuation of the Spiegel historiael by Jacob van Maerlant (end of Boek IV and Boek V)
Cyril Lucaris (Kyrillos Loukaris) was a noted Greek Orthodox theologian. After serving as Patriarch of Alexandria he became the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople in 1612. His tempestuous tenure was interrupted several times and ended with his downfall and execution in 1638. Lucaris was believed to be sympathetic to Calvinistic teaching. A Latin Qur'an translation, which circulated in manuscript in the seventeenth century was spuriously attributed to him.
Gerog Calixt was a prominent Lutheran theologian of first half of the seventeenth centuty. He was an important representative of the Irenicist school within Lutheranism. Among his students was the Altdorf orientalist Theodoricus Hackspan, who had studied the Qur'an intensively. Calixt himself was not an orientalist but did own a complete Qur'an ms. preserved today at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel.
Steffenhagen, "Cludius, Andreas" in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 4 (1876), S. 347-348 [Online-Version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd116617446.html#adbcontent
Andreas Cludius (Clute, Klute) (1555-1624) was a jurist. He severed several years as law professor at the University of Helmstedt and later served the as council and judge in the Duchy. He 1617 he retired and spent his final years in his native town of Osterode in the Harz mountains. A Qur'an ms. in his private library is held today at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel.
Asaph Ben Tov
Osterode (Harz) Wittenberg and Helmstedt Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg Osterode
Ezechiel Spanheim was a prominent German diplomat and scholar. Among his many interests was the debate on the age (and authority) of the vocalization marks in the Hebrew Bible.
A Qur'an ms. in his possession, which he presented to the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel is today preserved in the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel.
Captain Gerthumb (first name unknown) served as a captain in the Bernstoff Wolfenbüttel regiment during the Great Turkish War. In August 1685 he partook in the conquest of Nové Zémky (Neuhäusel) from the Ottomans. Two Qur'an manuscripts he looted are kept today at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel.
Ben-Tov, Loop and Mulsow (eds.), Hiob Ludolf and Johann Michael Wansleben: Oriental Study, Politics, and History between Gotha and Africa 1650-1700 (Leiden, 2023)
Hiob Ludolf is primarily known for his groundbreaking work on Ethiopic studies. He was also an accomplished student of the Qur'an and owned several Qur'an manuscripts which he studied carefully.
See Jan Loop, “Hiob Ludolf, the Qur’an, and the History of Writing”, in Ben-Tov, Loop and Mulsow (eds.), Hiob Ludolf and Johann Michael Wansleben: Oriental Study, Politics, and History between Gotha and Africa 1650-1700 (Leiden, 2023), pp. 351-89.
In addition to his work on mathematics and astronomy (Schickard was a friend of the great astronomer Johannes Kepler and became professor of astronomy in Tübingen in 1631), he was an accomplished Hebraist (and professor of Hebrew since 1618) with broad orientalist interests. Schickard had also taught himself Arabic and was a serious student of the Qur'an.
He owned several Qur’an mss.
Hermann von der Hardt, the long-serving professor at the University of Helmstedt was known in his day for his exceptionally broad scholarship and especially for his knowledge of Greek, Hebrew and Syriac. In the second half of his life his scholarship became ever less traditional (i.e. he was inclined to negate the reality of biblical miracles) but also increasingly eccentric by both contemporary and modern standards. Most shocking for contemporaries was his growing insistence to understand Old Testament narratives as coded political messages. He also championed the view (scorned upon by contemporaries) that all oriental languages (including Hebrew) were derived from a Greek dialect -- this was von der Hardt's striking variation on the contemporary Scythian theory.
There is an enormous body of scholarship on Luther. For a superb recent biography see Lyndal Roper, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet (London, 2016).
On Luther and Islam there is a growing literature. See e.g.
Hartmut Bobzin, Der Koran im Zeitalter der Reformation: Studien zur Frühgeschichte der Arabistik und Islamkunde in Europa (Stuttgart, 1995).
Adam S. Francisco, Martin Luther and Islam: a study in sixteenth-century polemics and apologetics (Leiden, 2007).
idem, “Martin Luther”, in: David Thomas and John Chesworth (eds.), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Volume 7. Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South America (1500-1600) (Leiden, 2015), pp. 225-34.
Thomas Kaufmann, „Türckenbüchlein“- Zur christlichen Wahrnehmung „türkischer Religion“ in Spätmittelalter und Reformation (Göttingen, 2008).
Friedrich Rückert was a prominent nineteenth-century German poet and accomplished orientalist. His extensive oeuvre includes a masterful poetical translation of the Qur'an into German. It is incomplete and was first published posthumously (1888).
August Müller was a German orientalist. He studied in Halle and Leipzig. In 1868 he wrote a thesis on Imru' al-Qais' Mu'allaqat and in 1870 submitted a habilitation on cantilation in Biblical Hebrew. Among his interests was the Classical tradition in the Muslim world. He served as professor in Königsberg and later in Halle.
In 1888 he edited Friedrich Rückert's German Qur'an translation.
Andreas Prölaeus (fl. first third of seventeenth century) was a provost in Pommerania. Among his works is a massive treatise against Socinianism, Mataeologia Sociniana (1624). This was followed in 1625 by a shorter work on the parallels between Socinianism and Islam.
Christoph Besold was a prominent legal scholar. Having studies at Tübingen he spent most of his academic life teaching there. His credentials as orthdox Lutheran were occasionally questioned -- and indeed later in life he clandestinely converted to Catholicism - -which became open after the Catholic victory at the Battle of Nördlingen. He moved to the Catholic university of Ingolstadt in 1636.
Among his friends were Johannes Kepler and Wilhelm Schickard.
Alastair Hamilton, "Friedrich Eberhard Boysen", in: David Thomas and John Chesworth (eds.), Christian-Muslim Relation. A Bibliographical History. Vol. 14. Central and Eastern Europe (1700-1800) (Leiden, 2020), pp. 210-15.
Count Sándor Apponyi (1844-1925) was a Hungarian diplomat, bibliophile, bibliographer, and great book collector. He worked as a diplomat in London and Paris where, through his connections, he could acquire many invaluable books. He was especially interested in works written about Hungary by foreign writers. His collection of such works became known as the Apponyi Hungarika, now held in the National Széchényi Library, Budapest.
Upon his death in 1928, Count Ferenc Vigyázó, in accordance with the will of his late father Count Sándor Vigyázó, left his lands, houses and other valuables to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, including his valuable collection of books, codices and pictures, as well as the Podmaniczky-Vigyázó Castle.
Count József Teleki (1790–1855) was a Hungarian jurist and historian, who served as the first President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1830 until his death. He and his family did not only financially support the foundation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences but he offered his 30,000 volume library to the Academy in 1826 as well.
Sándor Kégl (1862-1920) was a Hungarian literary historian and expert in Iranian studies. He studied Turkish, Persian, and Arabic at the University of Budapest and Hindi and Sanskrit at the universities of Wien, Paris, Cambridge, and Oxford. He was the first to prepare the catalog of Persian, Turkish, and Arabic manuscripts in the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His private library which amounted to about 11.000 volumes, among them 59 Persian manuscripts, was donated to the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences by his brother, János Kégl in 1925.
He worked as an Arabist after acquiring in 1884 the manuscripts found in Almonacid de la Sierra (Zaragoza, Spain). Years later, this collection became part of the collection of the Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios (later, CSIC). He published a compilation of aljamiada literature, and participated in the homage to the Arabist Francisco Codera in 1904.
Louis Kossuth (Kossuth Lajos) (1802-1894) was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, politician, statesman, and governor-president of the Kingdom of Hungary during the revolution of 1848–1849. His private library was brought back to Hungary shortly after his death and is now found in the National Széchényi Library.
György Klimó (1710-1777) was the Bishop of Pécs. He was the founder of the Klimo Library and a printing press. The Engel Printing House was established in 1773. Klimo Library is the first public library in Hungary. It was established in Pécs. After the Great War, the building of the library and its collection was given to the university. From this time, it was the main library of the University of Pécs. In 2010, the Klimó Collection merged into the University Library of Pécs and Centre for Learning.
Krsto Pejkić (1666) was a missionary, parish priest and canon. He was active in Hungary, Transylvania, Wallachia and Croatia. He started his studies in the Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide in 1689, but he did not obtain a degree.
Károly Werfer (1789-1846) was a printer and lithographer from Košice. In 1821, he purchased Ferenc Landerer’s bookstore. After his death, his son, Károly Werfer, continued to operate the printing press.
Szilády Áron (1837-1922) was a Hungarian linguist, literary historian, and Orientalist. He mastered many languages, among them Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew. He studied theology in Debrecen, then he went to Göttingen. After his studies, he returned to Hungary and worked as a reformed minister in various places, then he settled in Kiskunhalas.
Johann Jakob Gebauer (1745-1818) was a German printer and publisher based in Halle. In 1772, after the death of his father, Johann Justinus Gebauer, he took over his publishing house. After his death, his son, Friedrich Ferdinand Gebauer, took over. However, after his early death in 1819, the company was sold.
Kádár, Zs. - I. Fazekas: A pozsonyi jezsuiták két könyvtára mint Kecskés János, Pázmány Péter és az evangélikus lelkészek könyvgyűjteményeinek őrzőhelye, Magyar Könyvszemle, 137, 2021, 63-79.
Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (d. 1730) has the merit of having collected and organized one of the largest collections of Islamic manuscripts in 18th century Europe. Most of them are the result of the sack of Buda in 1686, but Marsili did also purchase manuscripts of his interest, mainly military and natural sciences, with the objective of having them translated. Now his collection is held at the Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna.
Ghyczy Ignác (1799-1870) was a renowned Hungarian book collector. After his death, his children donated his library, consisting of approximately 14,500 volumes, to the then-established Representative House Library (now known as the National Assembly Library). This family library from the 18th and 19th centuries is rich in museum-quality books and periodicals, primarily containing works in German, French, Hungarian, and Latin. The collection encompasses political, legal, state science, historical, geographical, economic, theological, military science, literary studies, and belletristic works.
Samuel Luchtmans (1685-1757) was a Dutch bookseller and printer. He was the son of Jordaan Luchtmans, who is considered to be the founder of the still-established Brill publishing house in Leiden. After his father's death, he took over the business. In 1720, he started his own printing press alongside the bookstore and publishing house.
Baruch Löb Ullmann, Leopold Ullmann, Ludwig Ullmann
Bonn, Gießen
University of Bonn, University of Gießen
Krefeld
1836
Sankt Goar
1804
Krefeld
1843
Lion Ullmann (1804-1843) was a German rabbi and Orientalist. He studied Jewish theology, Arabic studies, and Oriental studies at the University of Bonn under Georg Wilhelm Freytag. His translation of the Quran continues to be reprinted today.
Carl Christoph Traugott Tauchnitz (1761-1836) was a German printer and bookseller. He started with a small printing business and then opened a bookstore. In 1800, he also opened a type foundry. His business, Karl Tauchnitz, became one of the largest establishments of its kind in Germany.
Somogyi Károly (1811-1888) was a Hungarian canon and theologian. He was born into a noble, bibliophile family. Both his father and mother actively participated in the contemporary literary life. Although he wanted to be a parish priest, he finally became a canon in Bratislava and then in Esztergom. Finally, he was appointed archdeacon. He was the editor of various periodicals in which he published as well. In 1851, he founded Jó és olcsó Könyvkiadó Társulat (Good and Affordable Book Publishing Association), which later became the Szent István Társulat. He was a dedicated book collector. After the flood of Szeged in 1879, he donated his whole library to the city. His donation provides the basis for the city's library, which bears his name.
He was active from 1534 to 1580, producing around eighty editions under the mark "al segno del Pozzo" (symbolized by a well), continuing the work of his father, Giorgio Arrivabene. His workshop was frequented by figures such as Pier Paolo Vergerio, attracting the attention of the Inquisition, which investigated him in 1549 and again in 1551-52. In the 1540s, Arrivabene became involved in pro-Protestant propaganda, supplying heterodox books to individuals linked to heretical groups. He maintained ties with the Accademia degli Argonauti and several heretics, passing away in 1570.
He is a canon of Belluno Cathedral from 1534 to 1584 and an overlooked figure in the history of Italian printing and the Renaissance. He was active in Padua and Venice between 1543 and 1547 and authored at least four works. His first was a 1544 Italian translation of Niccolò Leonico Tomeo's De varia historia, printed by Michele Tramezino.
Filippo Guadagnoli studied Oriental languages, including Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, Persian, and Arabic. He taught these languages for several years in Rome at the College of Sapienza
Holéczy Mihály (1795-1838) was a Lutheran pastor. He studied at the Evangelic Lutheran Lyceum (Evanjelické lyceum) in Bratislava, Slovakia, then he returned to Komárno, Slovakia where he was a tutor then, for a short time, a rector. He finally moved to Nagyszokoly, Hungary where he became a pastor.
Gyöngyi Oroszi
Komárno Bratislava Komárno, Nagysokoly Nagyszokoly
György Ráth (1828–1905) was a prominent Hungarian jurist, cultural patron, and collector. While he pursued a successful legal and administrative career, he was a key figure in Hungarian museum history as well. He served for many years as director (later director general) of the Museum of Applied Arts (Iparművészeti Múzeum) in Budapest. Ráth was an avid and systematic collector. His private library contained thousands of volumes, including many rare Hungarian prints from the early modern period. Upon his death, Ráth bequeathed his book collection to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Count Ferenc Széchényi (1754-1820) was a Hungarian statesman and the founder of the National Széchényi Library and the Hungarian National Museum. He had a huge collection of books and manuscripts which he donated to the Hungarian nation in 1802. He also made a catalogue of these books and manuscripts which he printed on his own costs and sent abroad to rulers, scientific institutions and Hungarian and foregn scholars. This date is regarded as the date of foundation for the National Széchényi Library and the Hungarian National Museum. He is the father of István Széchényi (1791-1860).
Sándor Scheiber (1913-1985) was a Hungarian Rabbi and an eminent scholar. He was for decades the director (later rector) of the National Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest. He built a remarkable private scholarly library, parts of which were acquired by major Hungarian institutions after his death, including the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Library.
Heinrich Ewald was a foundational scholar who transformed the study of Arabic, Hebrew, and the Qurʾān from confessional or antiquarian pursuits into historically grounded, critical philology—shaping modern Oriental and biblical studies.
Jenő Zichy (1837–1906) was a Hungarian count, explorer, and major patron of Oriental scholarship who played a decisive role in the development of Hungarian Turkology and broader Eastern studies in the late 19th century. Motivated by questions of Hungarian origins, he financed and organized scientific expeditions to the Caucasus and Central Asia, bringing together linguists, ethnographers, and historians and publishing their results in scholarly volumes, often in connection with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Beyond exploration, Zichy was an avid collector: his private library contained key works on Islam, Oriental history, geography, and philology, many of which later entered public collections.
As the Vice President of the Academy (and later Director of the National Museum), Pulszky was deeply committed to building a national scholarly library, often donating pieces from his private collection to serve as "scientific tools" for researchers.
Christophe Plantin (c. 1520–1589) was a French-born printer who made Antwerp the center of one of the most important publishing enterprises of the 16th century. As founder of the Officina Plantiniana, he transformed printing into a large-scale, international scholarly industry, producing works in multiple languages—including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic—and collaborating with leading humanists of his age.