### ASSEMBANI
Name of four celebrated Catholic Orientalists belonging to an illustrious Maronite family from Lebanon. The name in Arabic is as-Simʿāni, not as-Samʿāni.
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#### 1. GIUSEPPE SIMONE OR SIMONIO
Born in Tripoli (Lebanon) to a family from the village of Hasrūn on 27 July 1687; died in Rome on 3 January 1768. He studied at the Maronite College in Rome and was preparing to return to Lebanon when his father Eva (Ḥawwā), co-founder of the Maronite Antonian Order, reported the existence of manuscripts in Egyptian monasteries. Authorized by the Pope, he commissioned Elia Assemani to purchase them, who sent 40 to Rome. Giuseppe Simone, then twenty years old, was summoned by Clement XI to review them and describe their contents, and on 10 March 1710 was appointed scriptor of the Vatican Library. In 1715 he was sent to the East to acquire manuscripts and, with valuable assistance from the Maronite patriarch, acquired several in Egypt and Syria (A., *Bibl. Orient.*, I, pp. vii and ix).
He served as a Vatican canon, vice-prefect, and prefect of the Vatican Library, and finally, in 1766, as titular archbishop of Tyre. In 1735 Clement XII sent him as an envoy to convene the famous Maronite Synod of 1736, confirmed by Benedict XIV with the bull *Singularis*. The Arabic and Latin version of its acts was prepared by him, after which he sent the *Relazione sull’abnegazione apostolica alla nazione dei Maroniti...* to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, printed in Rome without a date. The diary (*jaumijjah*) written on that occasion by him was published by L. Boleibel (*in al-Mašriq*, 25 (1927), nos. 6, 7 and 8). In 1739 Charles IV, King of Naples, appointed him historiographer of the kingdom and granted him honorary citizenship.
In addition to the aforementioned manuscripts, the Vatican Library was enriched by codices donated by the Chaldean patriarch Joseph I (of Amida), by Pietro della Valle, by the library of the Institute of Sciences in Bologna, by that of S. Pietro in Montorio, by the Maronite College in Rome, by the Maronites Abraham Ecchellensis (v.) and Faustus Nairon (Ecchellenses), by Gabriel Eva of Aleppo (Bereneses), and by Abraham Massad (A., *Bibl. Orient.*, I, praef., pp. viii, ix, x; A. Mai, *Script. Vet. nova collectio*, IV, praef., p. viii). This valuable collection prompted him to undertake the *Biblioteca Orientalis*, intended to comprise 12 volumes 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 foundational for Syriac literature and met with high praise. A fire in his private library on 30 August 1768 destroyed, among many manuscripts and printed works, most copies of these volumes and the manuscript of the remaining eight (Mai, *ibid.*, p. 166).
Other works include: *Menologium Graecorum* (Urbino 1727), of which the first two parts were translated by Clement XI before his priesthood, and the third, which constitutes half the work, was translated by him; the *Chronicon Orientale* of Ibn ar-Rāḥib, edited by Abraham Ecchellensis and reprinted by him with a new Latin translation (1731); the complete works of St. Ephrem the Syrian in 6 folio volumes, of which only the first three were translated into Latin from the Greek by him (Rome 1732–46); *Kalendaria Ecclesiae Universae*, 6 volumes in quarto (ibid. 1750–55), subtitled *Kalendaria Ecclesiae Slavicae, sive Graeco-Moschae* (this work is also incomplete and was intended to consist of 12 volumes); and *Bibl. Juris Orient. canon. et civil.*, in 5 volumes (ibid. 1762–66).
Cardinal Mai (*op. cit.*, vols. IV and V) published various unpublished writings of his, especially the notable dissertation on the validity of the sacrament of Order among the Copts (V, 11, pp. 171–237). His *Series chronologica Patriarcharum Antiochiae* was published by Giovanni Notani in 1581. Finally, the unpublished vows he wrote for the Holy Office and the Propaganda would fill 100 valuable volumes (cf. Mai, *op. cit.*, IV, p. 168). The precious eleventh-century Glagolitic Gospel he acquired in Jerusalem in 1736 was photographically reproduced by J. Vajs and J. Kurz (Prague 1920).
A biography with a list of his works is preserved in the archive of St. Peter’s Basilica (277, 22), now transferred to the Vatican Library.
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#### 2. STEFANO EVODIO
Grand-nephew of Jacob and nephew of Simon ʿAwwād, both Maronite patriarchs; he Italianized his surname to Evodio and added that of his maternal uncle Giuseppe Simone A., under which he is best known. Born in Hašrūn (Lebanon), or in nearby Tripoli from a family of Hašrūn, in 1709 or, according to others, in 1707, while E. Tisserant, basing himself on the *Ristretto della vita di mons. S. E. A.* (Vatican Library Archive, 12, f. 100), confirmed by the parish register of the Vatican Basilica for deaths, holds that he was born in 1711 (*in Oriens Christ.*, 1932, pp. 267–269). He studied at the Maronite College in Rome and, after completing his studies under the patronage of the aforementioned maternal uncle, was appointed scriptor of the Vatican Library in 1730. Patriarch Joseph Khazen consecrated him titular archbishop on 6 October 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 November 1782.
He compiled the catalogue of the Oriental manuscripts of the Medici Library in 1742; in 1746 he published his *Catalogo della Bibl. Chigiana* and in 1748 issued the Syriac text with the Latin version of the *Acta SS. Martyrum Orient.*, in 2 volumes, with abundant notes and detailed indices. He completed the translation of the third Syriac volume of St. Ephrem, interrupted by the death of Father Benedetti. Moreover, in collaboration with his uncle Giuseppe Simone, he wrote: *Bibliotheca Apostolicae Vaticanae codicum manuscriptorum catalogus*, intended to appear in 20 tomes divided into 3 parts, but only the first three tomes of the first part appeared, respectively in 1756, 1758 and 1759. A copy is in the Vatican Library, while the others perished in the fire that on 30 August 1768 destroyed the private library of S. E. and G. Simone Assemani. The manuscript of S. E., however, was later printed by Mai (*Script. vet.*, IV, p. 64, note). P. Efrem Dirani, in *al-Muhāmat*, published in 1899, contains (pp. 103–182) the Arabic translation of an Italian dissertation written in defense of St. John Maron by him and printed in Rome in 1769 by the publisher Giunchi without the author’s name. Pietro Sfair
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#### 3. GIUSEPPE LUIGI
Son of a brother of Giuseppe Simone, born in Tripoli (Lebanon) in 1710, died in Rome on 9 February 1782. He studied at the Maronite College in Rome; he was professor of Syriac and 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 beneficiary of the Lateran.
His principal work is the *Codex Liturgicus Ecclesiae universae in XV libros distributus*, in which are contained the liturgical books—Rituals, Missals, Pontificals, Offices, Diptychs, etc.—of both the Western and Eastern Churches. It was illustrated with a Latin translation, prefaces, commentaries, and variant readings. However, of the 15 books, only the first four and the eighth were published, between 1749 and 1766. The work enjoyed such success and was so sought after that it had to be reprinted in facsimile in 1902. He also published other works and translated into Latin the collection of canons made by Ebedesius ('Abdīsō') 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