The Lexicographical and Grammatical Studies by Giovanni Battista Raimondi (Rome ca. 1580–1614)

The scientific activity of the orientalist Giovanni Battista Raimondi is inextricably connected to the editorial projects of the Roman Typographia Medicea, which he directed from 1584 until his death. The present contribution focuses on unpublished grammars, lexica and other didactic materials of Syriac, Arabic, Persian and Turkish that were either produced or projected by Raimondi between the end of the 16th and the first decade of the 17th cent. A great number of grammatical and lexicographical notes, together with drafts and printing proofs are preserved in Florentine libraries as well as at the Vatican Library, witness of Raimondi’s approach in learning as well as teaching and describing Oriental languages. Such documents, with very few exceptions, have not been studied so far; we examine here this material from two different perspectives: the method for learning and self-teaching languages, on the one hand, and the organization and presentation of information in the didactic tools that he published (or prepared for publication) on the other.