Enciclopedia Cattolica

OBICINI, TOMMASO

Volume IX · p. 34 · 1952

English translation · Testo originale italiano

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

Article illustration
OBICINI, TOMMASO. — Franciscan Palestinian and Arabist, born at Noni, diocese of Novara, and therefore called Tommaso da Novara, died in Rome on 7 Nov. 1632.

Guardian of Aleppo in 1613 and 1619, he was sent by Paul V to the Synod of the Chaldeans (Amida 1616) to negotiate union with Rome. From 1620 to 1622 he was Custodian of the Holy Land and recovered from the Turks the sanctuaries of Nazareth and St. John in Montana. In 1622 he established a college for Eastern missionaries at S. Pietro in Montorio, where they would study Arabic. He also collaborated on the new Arabic version of the Bible.

Principal works: *Ordo processionis... Jerosolymis per ecclesiam S. mi Spulchri* (Venice 1623; Jerusalem 1855, 1896, 1925); *Processio ad praesepe in Bethlehem* (Venice 1623; Jerusalem 1885; Rome 1926); *Pia enarratio de redemptione templi S. Ioannis Bap. 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); *Grammatica Arabica Agrumia appellata* (ibid. 1631); *Thesaurus Arabico-Syro-Latinus* (ibid. 1636); *Aegyptiorum linguae rudimenta* (ed. A. van Lantschoot, Louvain 1948).

Bibl.: Wadding, *Annales*, XXV, pp. 164–201; id., *Scriptores*, pp. 216–17; Sbaralea, III, pp. 136–37; B. Spila, *Mem. stor. della prov. riformata romana*, I, Rome 1890, p. 601 sq.; II, Milan 1896, pp. 12 sq., 32, 48–56; A. Kleinhans, *Hist. studi linguae Arabicae...*, Quaracchi 1930, pp. 57–72 et passim; A. van Lantschoot, *Un précurseur d’Athenae Kircher: Thomas O. et la «Scala»*, Vat. Copt. 71, Louvain 1948.