Agostino Antonio Giorgi (M / Italy, 1711-1797), scholar
Agostino Antonio Giorgi (1711-1797) was an Italian scholar, orientalist, member of the Augustine Order. Professor at La Sapienza and curator of the Biblioteca Angelica. In 1775 he was asked by Card. Leonardo Antonelli to examine a manuscript of the Ethiopic text of 1 Enoch, one of only 4 manuscripts available in Europe at the end of the 18th cent. Giorgi recognized the importance of the text, but affirmed that he did not have the time or the skill to translate it:
"Monsignore Veneratissimo. Nel chiedere a V[ostra] S[ignora] Ill[ustrissi]ma e Re[verendissi]ma la grazia di avere nelle mani per alcuni giorni il famoso mss. Etiopico del creduto libro di Enoch. …sarebbe bene avere tutta la traduzione del Mss; ma io non sono nè capace nè paziente per questa fatica; la quale richiederebbe da me un assai lungo perdimento di tempo. Dopo ciò bacio a V[ostra] S[ignora] Ill[ustrissi]ma e Re[verendissi]ma le mani, e me Le protesto un[ilissi]mo dev[otissi[mo e obbl[igatissi]mo serv[ito]re. F. Ag[osti]no Ant[onio] Giorgi Agost[inia]no."
At the end no printed edition or translation of the manuscript were made. The first editions and translations of 1 Enoch ignored the Italian manuscript. Only some decades later, between 1819 and 1831, Angelo Mai purchased the text for the Vatican Library from the heirs of Card. Antonelli and made it available to scholarly research.
Biography
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