Ricerc@Sapienza

The Arabic language enjoys a complex status, due to the systematic coexistence of very different registers: literary Classic Arabic, spoken dialects, and various levels of so-called Middle Arabic. Knowledge of Arabic in Europe during the centuries of pre-modern and early-modern era usually would entail a (partial) competence in only one of these levels. Moreover, all these variants represented contact with or access to different communities and areas of knowledge.

As director of the Typographia Medicea, based in Rome (1584-1614), Giovanni Battista Raimondi (c. 1536-1614) developed his linguistic knowledge and projects in a period of expanding geographical and linguistic horizons, specifically in the Papal States, but also more broadly in Europe. In a series of manuscript notes, Raimondi evaluates and elucidates different languages’ qualities of excellence, especially those of Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian.