Category:Early Islamic Studies--Italian

Early Islamic Studies in Italian / Italian Scholarship on Early Islam

See Early Islamic Scholars in Italy

Overview

Because of its geographical location at the center of the Mediterranean and its historical role of bridge between Europe and the Middle East, Italy has played a central role in the development of Early Islamic Studies.

The first translation of the Qur'an in a modern language was authored by the Florentine Andrea Arrivabene in 1547. Although the Author claimed to have translated the text from the Arabic, his Italian version was based on the Latin version by Robert of Ketton (Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete, c1143), which had been just printed by Theodor Bibliander in 1543. Arrivabene's work originated the first versions of the Qur'an into German and Dutch.

In 1698 Ludovico Marracci, a catholic priest and professor of Arabic at the University La Sapienza of Rome, published a new Latin translation of the Qu'ran from the original Arabic text, which largely improved on the previous translations.

In the 18th and 19th century the contribution of Italian authors to Early Islamic Studies was limited to the translation of a few works from the French, following the success of Voltaire's "Mahomet le prophet," which was translated into Italian by Melchiorre Cesarotti in 1762 and adapted as an opera to the stage by Felice Romani in 1817. There was room, however, for one fundamental piece of scholarship, the "Dizionario storico degli autori arabi più celebri e delle principali loro opere" authored in 1807 by University of Parma Professor Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi.

At the beginning of the 20th century the works of Leone Caetani mark the rise of the Italian School of Early Islamic Studies. In the 1920s and 1930s, authors such as Giuseppe Sacco, Bruno Ducati, and others, published important contribution to the field. In 1929 Luigi Bonelli authored a new translation of the Qur'an as well as a critical edition of the Arabic text in 1937. Works by Émile Dermenghem and Tor Andræ were also translated into Italian.

The Italian School continued its work after the war with a new translation of the Qur'an by Alessandro Bausani in 1955. Great international acclaim gained in the 1960s the work of Francesco Gabrieli, which was translated into Spanish, English and German.

In the 1970s and 1980s the leading figure in the field was Sergio Noja. Two new translation of the Qur'an appeared, one by Federico Peirone in 1979 and one by Cherubino Mario Guzzetti in 1989.

In the 1990s and 2000s the growing Muslim presence in Italy has caused the emergence of an Italian Muslim Scholarship. In 1994 Hamza Roberto Blasone published the first Italian translation of the Qur'an authored by an Italian Muslim scholar. The work is still the "official" translation used by the majority of Muslims in Italy. Best known among Italian Muslim authors was Gabriele Mandel, whose work was widely translated in English, French, German, Spanish and other European languages. The tradition of Italian non-Muslim Arabists has been continued by Roberto Tottoli, Paolo Branca and Massimo Campanini. The growing public interest in the history, culture, and religion of Islam is testified in recent years by the increasing number of publications and translations of scholarly and fictional works in the field.

Import/export & International Impact

More than 1/3 of studies, published in Italy in the field, are translations of works, mostly from France, Germany, the United Kingdom ad the United States. On the other hand, only a few works originally published in Italy have been translated and published in other countries.

In spite of this unfavorable "balance of trade", the Italian School of Early Islamic Studies has a solid reputation in the world. The early works by Andrea Arrivabene and Ludovico Marracci were widely used and were fundamental for the spread of the knowledge of the Qur'an in Europe. De Rossi's "Dizionario Storico" (1807) was also a landmark in bibliographical research. Among the Italian Arabists whose work in Early Islam was more widely known outside of Italy, are Francesco Gabrieli, Gabriele Mandel, and Massimo Campanini.