Marracci, Lodovico

MARRACCI, LODOVICO. - Orientalist and theologian, b. at Torcigliano di Camaiore (Lucca) on 6 Oct. 1612, d. at Rome on 5 Feb. 1700. He entered the Congregation of the Regular Clerics of the Mother of God, where he held various offices; he received delicate assignments in the Curia.

A good connoisseur of the classical languages, he applied himself particularly to the study of Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. He played a leading part in the preparation of the Arabic version of the Bible, in harmony with the Vulgate, begun in 1624 and printed in 3 vols. in 1671, promoted by the S. Congregation of Propaganda for the use of the Eastern Churches. For 40 years he devoted himself to the great work: Alcorani textus universus (Padua 1698), in two folio volumes, of which the first bears the title: Prodromus ad refutationem Alcorani (published separately in 1691, in 4 vols.) and in which he treats of Muhammad according to the Arabic sources and refutes his doctrine; in the second he gives the Arabic text of the Quran, the Latin translation, the commentary on the obscure passages and the refutation; a fundamental work largely exploited by later editors of the Quran. He also attended to the correction of the Syriac Breviary; he translated the Paracletica in Siam Deiparam Virginem Mariam of St. John Damascene (1685); Lo stendardo seromannico (Rome 1683). He discovered the hoax of the famous tablets of Granada which were claimed to be attributed to St. James the Greater.