BASSET, RENÉ. - French Orientalist, b. at Lunéville on 24 July 1855, d. at Algiers on 14 January 1924. His reputation as a scholar rests on his many works on Berber dialects, which established him as a pioneer of Berber studies.
In Bassano’s work, the light that flashes wherever it strikes gives magnificent prominence to the radiant garment of the kneeling saint, to the golden cross of the saint, and to the vestments of the cleric, outlined by luminous threads. The touch
He also devoted himself to history (*Les documents arabes sur l'expédition de Charlemagne en Espagne*, Paris 1904), translated from Ethiopic the apocrypha of the Old and New Testaments (Paris 1893 and following), and published—partly in a version of his own—the Arabic Jacobite Synaxarion in the *Patrologia Orientalis* (vols. 1, 3, 16, 17) of Graffin. Silvio Furlani