Kircher Athanasius

PRODROMUS COPTUS SIVE AEGYPTIACUS

      Rome: Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, 1636. First Edition, First issue. With woodcut arms of Cardinal Francesco Barberini (the dedicatee) on the title; type fonts include Greek, Syriac, Abrabic, Hebrew, Estranghelo, Samaritan, Armenian, Chaldean, Rashi, Amharic, Saracenic, Hieroglyphic symbols, and Coptic. 4to, in a handsome binding of full contemporary vellum. A pleasing and well preserved copy in original binding.. A VERY HANDSOME COPY AND RARE FIRST EDITION. OThe first text-book of the Coptic language and the first printed book to contain Coptic charactersO (The Honeyman Collection). A second issue, with a variant on title-page (woodcut vignette instead of cardinal arms), was published the same year by the same Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, KircherOs interest in Egyptian was part of a wider interest in discovering or inventing a universal language to facilitate missionary work. As many Jesuits at the Roman College would become missionaries, the Jesuit missionary strategy insisted on their learning the languages of local people. With its many different type fonts the OProdromus CoptusO (Coptic forerunner) is a tour de force of seventeenth century typography.