TESEO, AMBROGIO DEGLI ALBONESI

Giovanni Maria Simoneta

Pavia

1539

Introdvctio in chaldaicam lingua[m], syriaca[m] atq[ue] armeenica[m] & dece[m] alias linguas. characterum differentiu[m] alphabeta, circiter quadraginta, & eoru[m]dem invicem co[n]formatio. Mystica et cabalistica qua[m]plurima scitu digna. Et descriptio ac simulachru[m] phagoti Afranij.

Brunet I, 229.

The author (1469-1540) was one of the first professors of Hebrew and Chaldaic in the University of Bologna, a humanist he was also a proponent of "Christian Kabbalah." The present work was one of the earliest studies of Oriental languages. The bulk consists of an Introduction to Chaldean, Syriac and Armenian (ff. 9–192). To this is added an Appendix which includes the presentation of alphabets (fg. 193–213), including brief references to Coptic (called "Jacobite") and Ethiopic (misleadingly called "Indian") and comments on the ancestry of European languages, especially languages of Italy, including a discussion of Etruscan. The author himself designed for the Pavian printer the characters of the different languages (Hebrew, Chaldaic, Aramaic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Phoenician, Assyrian, Persian, etc). Fundamental work for linguistic studies.