ITALIAN ARAB STUDIES IN THE PAST CENTURY

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Paolo Branca

We cannot fail from mentioning, amongst Italian Arabic scholars, Michele Amari, although he died in 1889 (and therefore not in the 20th century). His numerous books include in particular studies on the Arabs in Sicily: he painstakingly reconstructed their history, collecting an impressive amount of archive, epigraphic and literary material, which he channelled into specific studies, including the famous Biblioteca Arabo-sicula (published for the first time in Leipzig in 1857 by the German Orientalist Society). His disciple, Celestino Schiaparelli (died 1919) published the Canzoniere of the Arab Sicilian poet Ibn Hamdîs (Rome, 1897), Carlo Alfonso Nallino (1872-1938) and Eugenio Griffini (1878-1925), to whom we will return and Umberto Rizzitano (1913-1980), who in addition to an interest for Arab-Sicilian subjects also studied modern Arabic literature and was one of the first to introduce it in Italy, followed in Amari’s footsteps. Amari, exiled in Paris from 1842, only began to study Arabic then, but he mastered it so well that he was appointed Keeper of the manuscripts in that language at the Imperial Library of the French capital and successfully took part in the competition of 1857 mentioned above.

Italian orientalists enjoyed such prestige that some of them, like the Arabic scholars Ignazio Guidi (1844-1935) and Nallino, were invited to Cairo in 1908 by King Fu’âd, who had studied in Italy, to teach at the recently-established modern university in Egypt, the first of its kind, making a decisive contribution to the development of a new generation of local critics and men of letters. Nallino’s books cover many fields, including ancient and modern Arabic and Arabic literature occupy an important place. His daughter, Maria (1908-1974), as well as systematically collecting her father’s countless works with extraordinary dedication, also produced important Arabic studies of her own. Leone Caetani (1869-1935), a student of Schiaparelli and Ignazio Guidi, conceived encyclopaedic works which were only completed in part, but which are real monuments of knowledge: the 10 volumes of the Annali dell’Islam (Milan, 1905-1926) which cover only the first 40 years of Muslim history, a partial Chronographia Islamica and a draft of Onomasticon Arabicum which could subsequently be continued only thanks to modern electronic technology.

Before going into exile in Canada, he established a Foundation at the Academy of the Lincei which bears his name, with a rich collection of manuscripts, books and journals. Eugenio Griffini (1979-1925) also deserves special mention amongst the Italians who worked in Egypt: he was King Fu’âd’s librarian in the last five years of his life. He had studied Arabic at the Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples and then taught the language in Milan, where he published a compendium of Zaydite law in 1919, based on a manuscript from Yemen which together with many others he helped have bought by the Ambrosiana Library. then directed by Achille Ratti (who was to become Pope Pius XI). He also produced a number of studies on ancient Arab poets and founded a Linguistic Academy in Cairo in 1921. About twenty years after his father Ignazio, Michelangelo Guidi also taught Arabic philology in Cairo. The flourishing of Arabic studies in Italy was of course not unconnected to the country’s colonial interests at that time (studies on Muslim law, for example, also privileged, not surprisingly, the juridical schools prevalent in the territories of North Africa, just as there was a proliferation of books on the Arabic spoken in particular in Tripolitania and Cirenaica).

Nallino was asked to reorganize the Ottoman Archive in Libya in 1912 and direct the Translations Department of Tripoli and then sat on the post-War Commission at the Ministry of the Colonies. However, he never failed his intellectual honesty, taking a stance in favour of the local culture and aligning himself openly against the forced Italianization of the North African country. The same can be said of the Istituto per l’Oriente and its journal, Oriente Moderno, which maintained its independence of judgement even at delicate times, such as when the rebel Omar al-Mukhtâr was hanged. There was therefore specific interest in encouraging the development of certain studies, but these prospered without being excessively influenced and produced contributions of such a quality as to arouse unconditioned admiration even at international level. In the Survey of International Affairs in 1927 Arnold J. Toynbee wrote: “In the writer’s opinion Oriente Moderno is by far the best existing periodical dealing with the current Islamic affairs”. The journal followed in detail the events and press of the Arab countries in particular, and more in general of the Muslim Near East, with an investment of resources and competences which unfortunately was subsequently greatly reduced, to the detriment of contemporary studies in favour of other sectors.

In a similar climate, it is hardly surprising that some civil servants could also develop an academic vocation, like Martino Mario Moreno (1892-1964) who in addition to his diplomatic career (he was Director General of Political Affairs of the Ministry of Italian Africa from 1938 to 1950) was also a scholar of Arab and Persian subjects, producing some valid contributions on mysticism and an appreciable Italian translation of the Koran (Turin, 1967).
However, Italian Arabic studies also suffered, as elsewhere, from the consequences of the racial laws: the eleven academics who refused to swear loyalty to the Fascist regime included Giorgio Levi Della Vida (1886-1967) who was therefore “dispensed from duty” in 1932, after which he worked with the Vatican Library, making a decisive contribution to the cataloguing of Arabic manuscripts, until 1939, when he accepted a teaching post in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), not returning to Italy until 1947. Thanks to his scientific stature as a Semitic scholar and orientalist, he received countless awards: a member of the Lincei Academy and of the Academy of Sciences of Turin, doctor honoris causa at the Sorbonne, Algiers and Jerusalem, a member of the Institut de France, of the Société Asiatique and of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, he also gave his name to an annual prize for Islamic studies established in 1967 by the University of California… His enormous range of books include, in the field of Arabic studies, fundamental works on philology, paleography and history.

It was in the cultural climate that we have mentioned that the Scuola di Studi Islamici was founded in 1903 at the University of Rome as the spontaneous initiative of some lecturers in the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy: De Gubernatis, I. Guidi, Labanca, Nocentini and Schiaparelli. The prestigious Rivista degli Studi Orientali was started there in 1907. Roberto Rubinacci (1915-1992) was linked with the Istituto Orientale of Naples. His interests were juridical studies and the Ibadites but also modern Arabic literature. Above all his name is inseparable from a critical edition of al-Idrîsî. Another important figure was that of Paolo Minganti (1925-1978) who was also a historian and Islamist: he published a remarkable Storia della letteratura araba and translated a number of modern Arab poets.
Also to be remembered are the figures of Virginia Vacca (1891-1988), a student of Nallino who contributed with others to the publication in Italian of the Arabian Nights and an anthology of the Sahîh by al-Bukhârî; Ester Panetta (1894-1983) who left some interesting studies on the spoken language, customs and legends of the Libyans and Laura Veccia Vaglieri (died 1988), who studied under Schiaparelli and was the author of an excellent Grammatica teorico-pratica della lingua araba (2 vols., Rome 1937, 1961). She taught for over twenty years in Naples and was also a highly appreciated contributor to the Encyclopédie de l’Islam and the Cambridge History of Islam and co-edited, with Alessio Bombaci, Umberto Rizzitano and Roberto Rubinacci, the Opus Geographicum by al-Idrîsî (Naples-Rome, 1970-1984) and with Rizzitano a remarkable anthology of the writings of al-Ghazâlî.

Giuseppe Gabrieli (1872-1942) was a scholar of ancient Arabic poetry and taught Arabic, but his son Francesco (1904-1996) in particular was an Arabic scholar of a very high level whose countless works are known all over the world. The work of Alessandro Bausani (1921-1988) extends far beyond the vast limits of Arabic studies: this brilliant figure distinguished himself in many fields of orientalist and Islamic studies, and he is remembered here especially for the excellent translation of the Koran which is perhaps the best one available in Italian.

The main centres of Arabic studies in Italy, in addition to the Faculties of Oriental Languages of Naples and Venice, include the Pontifical Oriental Institute, founded in 1917 (specialized in the Arab-Christian field) and the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies which was founded in Tunis in 1950 but moved to Rome in 1967.

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