AGOSTINO GIUSTINIANI. — Orientalist and Dominican bishop, born in Genoa to a patrician family in 1470, died in a shipwreck in the Ligurian Sea in 1536.
He entered religious life in 1487 and professed in the convent of S. Apollinare in Pavia, though remaining affiliated with S. Maria di Castello in Genoa. After eighteen years of teaching, concluded with a two-year stint as a bachelor of theology in Bologna, he was appointed bishop of Nebbio in Corsica at the beginning of September 1514. He took part in the last two sessions of the Fifth Lateran Council (1516–17). Owing to his expertise in Oriental languages, he was then summoned by Francis I of France to establish the chair of Hebrew at the University of Paris, which he held for nearly five years. He was a friend of Pico della Mirandola, Erasmus, Thomas More, and others. Giustiniani had planned to publish a polyglot Bible enriched with scholia and commentaries. However, he was able to publish only a small portion of II. Among his works are cited the *Psalterium Hebraeum, Graecum, Arabicum et Chaldaicum cum tribus latinis interpretationibus et glossis* (published by P. P. Porrus, Genoa 1516). This was the first work of its kind published in Europe. In it, commenting on Psalm 18:5, Giustiniani included Columbus (v.).