Franciscan Orientalist who printed the Arabic text of the Īsāghūjī with a Latin translation in Rome in 1625, the first printed edition of the book.
Life
Tommaso Obicini (1585–1632), known in Latin as Thomas Novariensis (“Thomas of Novara”), was a Franciscan friar and a specialist in Middle Eastern languages. He worked in the Franciscan missions in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, translated many Arabic texts into Latin, and later taught Arabic at the friary of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome, a centre of Arabic studies.
His books were meant for training missionaries for the Near East, a task the Roman Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) had given to schools in Franciscan houses in Rome. For this purpose he published in 1625 a bilingual Arabic–Latin introduction to , which is in fact the text of al-Abharī’s , although he does not name al-Abharī. His Arabic–Syriac–Latin glossary, Thesaurus Arabico-Syro-Latinus, appeared after his death (Rome, 1636).
Works
- Isagoge, id est, breve Introductorium Arabicum in Scientiam Logices — on al-AbharīArabic text with Latin translation, Rome: Stephanus Paulinus, 1625, 44 pages. The first printing of the Īsāghūjī.translation
- Thesaurus Arabico-Syro-LatinusTopical glossary for missionaries, published posthumously (Rome, 1636).work
Reception
Encyclopaedia Iranica names his 1625 edition as the first publication of the , and the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi lists it among the book’s translations. Eleonora Travanti notes that, because its title is often misread, the book has wrongly been described as a on Porphyry’s Isagoge.
Sources (5)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries, catalogue record: Īsāghūjī = Isagoge (Rome 1625)
- Eleonora Travanti, University of Erfurt, on Obicini’s Isagoge
- Sokol Books, Obicini, Thesaurus Arabico-Syro-Latinus (1636): description
- G. C. Anawati, “Abharī, Aṯīr-al-Dīn”, Encyclopaedia Iranica (1982)
- Abdulkuddüs Bingöl, “Îsâgūcî”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 22 (2000)