Date/Time
Date(s) - 21 Nov 2013
7:00 PM - 8:15 PM
Location
Columbia University Faculty House
Category(ies) No Categories
SEMINAR IN ARABIC STUDIES
Professor Pier Mattia Tommasino will give a lecture,
Venice 1547: a Renaissance scholar between artes, fabulae and the Qur´an
The Alcorano di Macometto was published by Andrea Arrivabene in Venice in 1547. It was dedicated by the printer to the fourth French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Gabriel de Luetz, Baron of Aramon (1547-1553). So far this text has been considered to be an abridged and confused paraphrase of the Latin translation of the Qur´an made by Robert of Ketton (1143 AD). A closer look shows that the Alcorano was a very interesting and innovative handy pocket encyclopedia of the history of Islam and the Ottoman Empire. The author of the Alcorano is not identified in the edition itself. He turned out to be Giovanni Battista Castrodardo from Belluno (1517-1588), a forgotten but very active and brilliant scholar: a translator of Latin historical texts, a reader of Machiavelli, and a historian hiself, who also wrote a commentary on Dante´s Comedy. Through the close reading of two sections of the life of Muhammad, published in the introduction of the book, Tommasino will explain how Castrodardo´s literary and political scholarship influenced the new image of the Prophet Muhammad presented in this Renaissance Qur´an.
Pier Mattia Tommasino is Assistant Professor of Italian at Columbia University. He is former fellow of the Institute of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures in Madrid (CSIC, 2012-2013), of the Fondazione Cini/Centro Vittore Branca (Venice, 2011-2012), and of Villa I Tatti (Harvard, Florence, 2010-2011). His research focuses on the linguistic, textual, bibliographical and religious relations between Southern Europe and the Muslim World, especially on the Italian and Latin translations of the Qur´an, as well as on the diffusion of Italian language and books in the Muslim Mediterranean (16th/17th century). His first book L´Alcorano di Macometto. Storia di un libro del Cinquecento europeo, Bologna, il Mulino 2013, is co-funded by the Lila Acheson Wallace-Reader´s Digest Publication Grant and the Scuola Normale Superiore.
THURSDAY, November 21, 2013 @ 7:00 PM
Dinner will be at 6:00 pm in the Faculty House (payment required). The talk will begin at 7:00 pm in Faculty House. Those unable to attend the dinner are welcome to join the talk at 7:00 pm. We respectfully request that you notify Vivek Gupta [email protected] no later than MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, to let us know if you will attend and if you will be having dinner.