Abstract: Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā (980–1037), commonly known as Avicenna, was born at Afshaneh, near Bukhara in Persia (present-day Uzbekistan). By the age of 10, he was well versed in the study of the Qurʼan and various sciences. He was the most famous and influential of the many Islamic scholars, scientists, and philosophers of the medieval world. He was foremost a physician but was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, psychologist, philosopher, logician, mathematician, physicist, and poet. A prolific writer in all of these fields, he captured the knowledge of the time in well organized texts. Avicenna’s writings influenced the scholarship of medicine in the West into the 17th century. Avicenna’s al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb (The canon of medicine) contains a complete system of medicine based on the traditions of the ancient Greek scholars. Floris Avicenne is a Latin translation of Avicenna’s masterpiece, first published in 1508 by the Renaissance editor of scientific translations Michael de Capella.Physical description: 346 pages, 17 centimeters
Abstract: Dominicus Germanus de Silesia (1588–1670) was a German priest and missionary. Born in Schurgast (present-day Skorogoszcz, Poland), he entered the Franciscan order in 1624 and devoted himself to learning Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. In 1630 he went to Palestine as a pastor, where he continued with his language studies. In 1635 he returned to Rome where he joined the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda de Fide (Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith). In 1636 he became a teacher at the Mission of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, and published his grammar of Arabic and Italian, Fabrica overo dittionario della lingua volgare arabica, et italiana (Fabrica, or dictionary of vernacular Arabic and Italian language). Shown here is the rare first edition of his Fabrica, printed by the press of the Propagande de Fide. Dominicus was also the editor of the famous Arabic–Latin dictionary printed at the same press in 1639, and the author of a polemical work, Antitheses Fidei, published in 1638. In 1645 he was sent to Persia on a political mission by King Wladyslaw IV of Poland. Although his destination was Samarkand, he appears to have reached no further than Isfahan, where he remained, studying Persian and Turkish, before returning to Rome in 1651. In 1652 he went to Spain to the court of Philip IV as teacher and translator. A number of his translations survive at the Escorial Palace. In Madrid he completed a translation of the Bible into Arabic, which the Vatican published in 1671. His translation of the Qur’an appears to have been incomplete at his death in 1670, in Madrid.Physical description: 112 pages
li-Ibn al-Ḥājib.Imprint from Smitskamp.Signatures: 1⁴ 2-12⁴ $1 signed; signed in Arabic characters.Title page printed in red; text printed in red and black.