Un progetto di Bibbia Poliglotta di Giovanni Battista Raimondi e il ms. Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Or. 58 (9a1)

A project for a Polyglot Bible by Giovanni Battista Raimondi and the Florence ms., Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Or. 58 (9a1). The essay is devoted to the project of a Polyglot Bible, conceived as a most relevant output of the Medici Printing Press (“Stamperia Medicea”), established in Rome in 1584 at the behest of the orientalist Giovanni Battista Raimondi (ca 1536-1614) and funded by Cardinal (then Grand Duke of Tuscany) Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549-1609). As several reports by Raimondi show, this Polyglot was to include Arabic and Syriac translations of both the Old and the New Testament. According to Raimondi, the basic tools required to publish it, that is, the types as well as biblical manuscripts in the two languages, were already available in Rome. The source text for the Syriac Old Testament may be identified with a Ms. now kept in Florence (Biblioteca medicea laurenziana, Orientale 58). This Ms., better known, according to the Peshitta Institute sigla, as 9a1 (14/9a1, 16/9a1), is one of the oldest witnesses to the Syriac Old Testament; albeit incomplete, it reached Rome along with other books owned by the Patriarch Ignatius Naʿmatallah (ca 1515-1587) who, after abdication in 1576, took refuge in Rome and collaborated with the Press. Ms. Or. 58 shows evidence of Naʿmatallah’s preparatory work (e.g. text division according to the Latin Vulgate). Raimondi himself copied the full text. Raimondi’s copy, the intended model for the Syriac printed text and its Latin translation, may be identified with two large Syriac Mss. kept in the same library (Orientale 13 and Orientale 14).