GUADAGNOLI (Philippo)

Breves arabicae lingua institutiones. Rome, ex typographia Sac. Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, excudebat Ioseph David Luna, Maronita,

      Woodcut device on title-page, Arabic letters. Folio. [6]ff. 349pp. (lacking final blank). Contemporary vellum over paste-board. 1642. Rare first edition. Guadagnoli (c. 1596-1656), who was instrumental in the printing of the Arabic Bible, was the first Italian nominated as professor of Arabic at the Collegium Sapientiae (afterwards the University of Rome), in 1642, his predecessors having all been Maronites. "In the preface the author explains how his grammar serves a special purpose. The Arabic Bible was at that time being printed in an unvocalised text in order to make it acceptable to the Arabic-speaking world, and with this in mind Guadagnoli has paid special attention to the ratio et usus scribendi, and to the essentials of metrics. In this grammar we find printed for the first time the famous metrical poem Carmen Chazregiacum (al-Qasida al-Hazragiya) and the Carmen de invocationibus (al-Qasida al-Minadat), printed according to Guadagnoli after a manuscript from the library of Della Valle. At the end Guadagnoli printed also a few lines of an Arabic poem by the well known Maronite theologian Gabriel ibn al-Qulai" (Smitskamp). The Arabic types, also used for the Arabic Bible, are those of the Maronite, Joseph David Luna, nephew of the Archbishop of Damascus, who styled himself in Arabic as "Joseph of Mount Lebanon, from the town of Baslukith". A few quires lightly browned, some spotting. Schurrer 72. Smitskamp Philologia Orientalis no. 220. OCLC/RLIN (Harvard & Princeton only in U.S.A.)