Assemani

ASSEMANI. - Name of four celebrated Catholic Orientalists, belonging to an illustrious Maronite family of Lebanon. The name in Arabic is as-Sim'ānī, not as-Sam'ānī.

1. GIUSEPPE SIMONE, or SIMONIO

Born at Tripoli (Lebanon) of a family from the village of Ḥaṣrūn on 27 July 1687; died at Rome on 3 Jan. 1768. He studied at the Maronite College of Rome and was preparing to return to Lebanon, when his father Eva (Ḥaṣrūd), co-founder of the Maronite Antonian Order, reported the existence of manuscripts in the Egyptian monasteries and, authorized by the Pope, charged Elia Assemani with buying them; the latter sent 40 of them to Rome. Giuseppe Simone, then twenty years old, was summoned by Clement XI to review them and indicate their contents, and on 10 March 1710 he was appointed writer of the Vatican Library. In 1715 he was sent to the East to purchase manuscripts and, effectively helped by the Maronite patriarch, he acquired several in Egypt and Syria (A., Bibl. Orient., I, pp. VII and IX).

A. was a Vatican canon, vice-prefect and prefect of the Vatican Library, and finally, in 1766, titular archbishop of Tyre. In 1735 Clement XII sent him as ablegate to convoke the famous Synod of the Maronites of 1736, confirmed by Benedict XIV with the bull Singularis. Its drafting in Arabic and Latin is due to the pen of A., who then addressed to the S. Congregation of Propaganda the Relazione sull'ablegazione apostolica alla nazione dei Maroniti..., printed in Rome without date. The diary (jaumijjah), written on that occasion by A., was published by L. Boleibel (in al-Mašriq, 25 (1927), nos. 6, 7 and 8). In 1739 Charles IV, king of Naples, appointed A. historiographer of the kingdom and granted him honorary citizenship.

Besides the aforementioned manuscripts, the Vatican Library had been enriched by the codices offered by the Chaldean patriarch Joseph I (Amidenses), by Pietro della Valle, by the library of the Institute of Sciences of Bologna, by that of S. Pietro in Montorio, by that of the Maronite College of Rome, by the Maronites Abraham Ecchellensis (v.) and Faustus Naironus (Ecchellenese), by Gabriel Eva of Aleppo (Boerense), and by Abraham Massad (A., Bibl. Orient., I, praef., pp. VIII, IX, X; A. Mai, Script. Vet. nova collectio, IV, praef., p. VIII). This precious collection gave him the occasion to set his hand to the Bibliotheca Orientalis, which was to comprise 12 vols., but of which only 4 appeared (Rome 1719-1728): I, De Scriptoribus Syris orthodoxis; II, De Scriptoribus Syris monophysitis; III, I, De Scriptoribus Syris nestorianis, and III, II, De Syris nestorianis. This work was universally recognized as fundamental for Syriac literature and was filled with praises. A fire, which broke out in

A.'s private library on 30 Aug. 1768, destroyed, besides many manuscripts and printed books, most of the copies of these volumes and the manuscript of the 8 remaining ones (Mai, ibid., p. 166).

Other works are: Menologium Graecorum (Urbino 1727), of which the 1st and 2nd parts were translated by Clement XI before his priesthood, and the 3rd, which is half of the work, was translated by A.; Chronicon Orientale of Ibn ar-Rāhib, ed. by Abraham Ecchellensis and reprinted by A. with a new Latin translation (1731); S. Ephraem Syri opera omnia, 6 vols. in-fol., of which only the first three were translated into Latin by A. from the Greek (Rome 1732-46); Kalendaria Ecclesiae Universae, 6 vols. in 4to (ibid. 1750-55), which have as subtitle Kalendaria Ecclesiae Slavicae, sive Graeco-Maschae (this work too is incomplete and was to consist of 12 vols.); and Bibl. Iuris Orient. canon. et civil., in 5 vols. (ibid. 1762-66).

Card. Mai (op. cit., vols. IV and V), published various unpublished writings of A., especially the notable dissertation on the validity of the sacrament of Order among the Copts (V, II, pp. 171-237). His Series chronologica Patriarcharum Antiochiae was published by Giovanni Notain in 1881. Finally, the unpublished votes written by him for the S. Office and Propaganda would form 100 precious volumes (cf. Mai, op. cit., IV, p. 168). The precious Glagolitic Evangelary of the 10th-11th century acquired at Jerusalem in 1736 was reproduced photographically by J. Vajs and J. Kurz (Prague 1920).

A summary of his life was written with the list of works, which is preserved in the archive of the basilica of S. Pietro (277, 22), now passed to the Vatican Library.

Pietro Sfair

2. STEFANO EVODIO

Great-nephew of Giacomo and nephew of Simone 'Awwād, both Maronite patriarchs, he Italianized his surname into Evodio and added to it that of his maternal uncle Giuseppe Simone A., under which he is better known. Born in Ḥaṣrūn (Lebanon), or in nearby Tripoli of a family from Ḥaṣrūn, in 1709 or, according to others, in 1707, while E. Tisserant, basing himself on the Ristretto della vita di mons. S. E. A. (Archivio bibl. Vat., 12, l. 100), confirmed by the parish register of the Vatican basilica for the dioceses, holds that he was born in 1711 (in Oriens Chr., 1932, pp. 267-269). He studied at the Maronite College of Rome and, having completed his studies under the auspices of the aforementioned maternal uncle, was, in 1730, appointed writer of the Vatican Library. The patriarch Joseph Khazen consecrated him titular archbishop on 6 Oct. 1736, appointing him his procurator in Rome. In 1768 he succeeded his uncle Giuseppe Simone as first custodian of the Vatican Library and died on 24 Nov. 1782.

He compiled the catalogue of the Oriental mss. of the Medicean Library in 1742; in 1746 he brought to light his Catalogo della Bibl. Chigiana and published, in 1748, the Syriac text with the Latin version of the Acta SS. Martyrum Orient., in 2 vols., with a great abundance of notes and detailed indexes. He completed the translation of the 3rd Syriac vol. of St. Ephrem, interrupted by the death of father Benedetti. Moreover, in collaboration with his uncle Giuseppe Simone, he wrote: Bibliotheca Apost. Vaticanae codicum mss. catalogus, which was to appear in 20 tomes, divided into 3 parts, but of which only the first 3 tomes of the first part appeared, respectively in 1756, 1758 and 1759. One copy is found in the Vatican Library, while the others perished in the fire that on 30 Aug. 1768 destroyed the private library of S. E. and G. Simone Assemani. The ms. of S. E., however, was later printed by Mai (Script. vet., IV, p. 64, note). P. Efrem Dirani, in al-Muhānāt, published in 1809, contains (pp. 103-185) the Arabic translation of an Italian dissertation written in defense of St. John Maron by A., and printed in Rome in 1769 by the publisher Giunchi, without the author's name.

Pietro Sfair

3. GIUSEPPE LUIGI

Son of a brother of Giuseppe Simone, born at Tripoli (Lebanon) in 1710, died at Rome on 9 Febr. 1782. He studied at the Maronite College of Rome; he was professor of Syriac and of liturgy at the Sapienza and of Syriac at the college of Propaganda Fide, as well as a member of the pontifical Academy for historical research and a Lateran beneficiary.

His principal work is the Codex Liturgicus Ecclesiae universae in XV libros distributus in quo continentur libri Rituales, Missales, Pontificales, Officia, Dyptica, etc. Ecclesiae Occidentis et Orientis... latina versione, praefationibus commentariis et variationibus illustratus. Of the 15 books, however, only the first four and the eighth were published, between 1749 and 1766. The work was successful and so much sought after that it had to be reprinted in facsimile in 1902. A. also published other works and translated into Latin the collection of canons made by Ebediesu ('Abdiis') and the Nomocanon of Bar Hebraeus, both of which were published by Angelo Mai in Script. veterum, X. Rome 1838, part 1, pp. 1-360 (Syriac and Latin), and part 2, pp. 1-268.

Pietro Sfair

4. SIMONE

Son of a brother of Giuseppe Luigi, born in Tripoli (Lebanon) in 1752. He completed his studies at the Maronite College in Rome, and having returned to his homeland, he entered the Antonian Order of Aleppo. After 12 years, he moved to Padua, where he was appointed professor of Oriental languages at the seminary and later at the University. He was also a member of the Academy of Padua, where he died in 1821. He displayed fine activity, as his numerous writings prove, among them the Saggio sull'origine, culto, letteratura e costumi degli Arabi avanti il pseudo profeta Maometto (Padua 1787). But his best work is the Catalogo dei Codici mss. orientali della Biblioteca Naniana... To it is added the illustration of the Kufic coins of the Naniano museum, 2 vols. (ibid. 1787-92).

Pietro Sfair