OBICINI, TOMMASO. - Franciscan scholar of Palestine and Arabist, b. at Noni, diocese of Novara, and therefore called Tommaso da Novara, d. at Rome on 7 Nov. 1632.
Guardian of Aleppo in 1613 and 1619, he was sent by Paolo IV to the Synod of the Chaldeans (Amida, 1616) to negotiate their union with Rome. From 1620 to 1622 he was Custodian of the Holy Land and recovered from the Turks the sanctuaries of Nazareth and S. Giovanni in Montana. In 1622 he established at S. Pietro in Montorio
Principal works: Ordo processionis... Jerosolymis per ecclesiam S.mi Spulchri (Venice 1623; Jerusalem 1855, 1896, 1925); Processio ad praesie in Bethlehem (Venice 1623; Jerusalem 1885; Rome 1926); Pia enarratio de redemptione templi S. Ioannis Bapt. in montanis Iudae et ordo processionis (ibid. 1623, 1786; Genoa 1835; Rome 1926); Quomodo... Nazareth ecclesiam p. Th. O. recuperaverit... una cum processione (ibid. 1623 and several times thereafter); Grammatica Arabica Afrumia appellata (ibid. 1631); Thesaurus Arabico-Syra-Latinus (ibid. 1636); Jegyptiorum linguae rudimenta (ed. A. van Lantschoot, Louvain 1948).
BBL: Wadding, Annales, XXV, pp. 164-201; id., Scriptores, pp. 216-17; Sbarales, III, pp. 136-37; B. Spila, Mem. stor. della proc. riformata romana, I, Rome 1890, p. 601 ff.; II, Milan 1896, pp. 12 ff., 32, 48-56; A. Kleinhans, Hist. studii linguae Arabicae... Quaracchi 1930, pp. 37-72 and passim; A. van Lantschoot, Un précurseur d'Athanae Kircher: Thomas O. et la « Scalu », Vat. Copte 71, Louvain 1948.