This paper has the aim to present a project currently underway at the
Interdepartmental Research ... more This paper has the aim to present a project currently underway at the Interdepartmental Research Unit of the University of Florence, entitled Cultures, texts and traditions of the Christian East in dialogue with Europe and Islam (EuTradOr). The aim of this project is the critical edition of the texts related to the Legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, the reconstruction of the history of their textual traditions, and the study of this Legend in all its aspects: religious, cultural, and anthropological.
In this paper we propose a brief introduction to the story of the Legend of the Seven Sleepers in... more In this paper we propose a brief introduction to the story of the Legend of the Seven Sleepers in Easter Literatures. A critical edition of the oldest Arabic version with its Italian traslation is also proposed.
Ten years after his disappearance, father Paolo Dall’Oglio has left us a spiritual legacy that ha... more Ten years after his disappearance, father Paolo Dall’Oglio has left us a spiritual legacy that has yet to be understood in all its complexity and depth. This brief contribution proposes a reading of the vocation of father Dall’Oglio that highlights three central aspects: the spirituality of the Community of al-Khalil, the choice of dialogue with Islam and civil and social commitment in the Arab world. Each of these aspects is intrinsically linked to the other in a completely original though not exhaustive way. In fact, there are other points of father Dall’Oglio’s vocation that are worthy of attention and reflection. For this reason, this contribution is a first attempt at reading that will require further and desirable insights.
Amazon woman is a literary topos that has crossed a wide variety of literary and cultural traditi... more Amazon woman is a literary topos that has crossed a wide variety of literary and cultural traditions up to our days. In this essay, the author, starting from the classical tradition, analyses the origin of the Amazons theme, by comparing it with the medieval Arabic epic literature, as well as detecting the similarities and differences. In light of this brief analysis, the author does not propose a philological-genealogical reading of the theme, but rather adopts the hermeneutical tools of psychoanalysis to conclude that it is a theme of the universal literature.
This article deals with the intertextual relations between Eastern Christian hagiographical tradi... more This article deals with the intertextual relations between Eastern Christian hagiographical traditions of Late antiquity on one hand, and some texts belonging to the early Islamic religious literature on the other. In the last two centuries, European orientalistic literature has considered the Islamic literature as a basin where past religious traditions have been converged and passively copied. In this contribution I would stress the original activity of early Muslim writers who reworked Eastern Christian legends in order to build a new religious identity as well as to consolidate new boundaries. Accordingly, the key-figure used by wirters of pre-modern Islam is the fighter-horsemanmonk, a kind of sign and symbol of the “common semiotic koine” within the monotheistic tradition (Sizgorich). In this study, I will chose two narrative cycles: some texts relating to the instauration of Christianity in South Arabia, and the Martyrdom of Aretha and his companions in Nağrān (BHG 166). In both cases it is possible to point out mutual borrowings from one tradition to the other. In the former cycle, the Sīra nabawiyya by Ibn Hišām presents two texts whose sources have to be found in Christian hagiography of both Syriac and Geez (old classical Ethiopic) literature. In the latter, a reciprocal interference in both Christian-Muslim directions has been pointed out.
Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Newsletter, Jan 15, 2014
This article offer an overview of the Arabic manuscriot tradition of the Arabic Martyrion of Aret... more This article offer an overview of the Arabic manuscriot tradition of the Arabic Martyrion of Arethas and his companions in Naǧrān as attested in at least three different versions or redactions.
The Apocalypse of Paul is perhaps the most widespread Christian apocalyptic text that spread out ... more The Apocalypse of Paul is perhaps the most widespread Christian apocalyptic text that spread out in Middle Ages in West and East alike. Among the numerous languages in which this Christian apocryphal has been translated, the Arabic version has the richest manuscript tradition (36 witnesses known), after the Latin version (43 witnesses for 8 different redactions). In this study the editio princeps of the oldest known witness, the Arab Sinaitic 461 (10th century), is proposed. It is a version probably taken from a Greek model, as some lexical and syntactic Hellenisms demonstrate. The edition of the Arabic text is accompanied by an annotated Italian translation. To the three redactions described and studied so far, we must therefore add this one which represent the oldest Arabic translation, the text of which offers us a further evidence of the translation activity that took place in South Palestine, between the 8th and 9th centuries..
Chapitre sur l'edition critique et la critique textuelle du manuel Comparative Oriental Manus... more Chapitre sur l'edition critique et la critique textuelle du manuel Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction lie au projet europeen eponyme.
The fragments published in this article are from Parisinus Arabicus 213, a Christian Arabic manus... more The fragments published in this article are from Parisinus Arabicus 213, a Christian Arabic manuscript belonging to the Egyptian Coptic milieu at the beginning of the 17th century. These fragments are part of a rich Christian theological and spiritual collection wich includes works by the ...
Les themes et sujets du present volume d'hommages que lui dedient plusieurs de ses collegues ... more Les themes et sujets du present volume d'hommages que lui dedient plusieurs de ses collegues et amis, correspondent au profil a la fois focalise et varie de Jacques Grand'Henry, Professeur emerite d'etudes arabes a l'Universite catholique de Louvain. Les domaines couverts sont notamment ceux de la dialectologie arabe descriptive ou historique, de la linguistique historique et comparative, du moyen arabe ou de l'arabe melange tel qu'on le trouve dans les textes medievaux et dans les documents modernes (textes litteraires ou enonces oraux), et de la philologie arabe sous des differents aspects.
2. Fonti del trattato 95 3. La struttura del trattato 96 4. Le citazioni bibliche 97 5. Sulaymãn ... more 2. Fonti del trattato 95 3. La struttura del trattato 96 4. Le citazioni bibliche 97 5. Sulaymãn al-Gazzi cita Giovanni Damasceno 97 6. Le versioni arabe della Fonte della conoscenza 99 7. L'ambiente linguistico della Chiesa melchita 100 F. Perché Sulaymãn al-Gazzï cita ...
This paper has the aim to present a project currently underway at the
Interdepartmental Research ... more This paper has the aim to present a project currently underway at the Interdepartmental Research Unit of the University of Florence, entitled Cultures, texts and traditions of the Christian East in dialogue with Europe and Islam (EuTradOr). The aim of this project is the critical edition of the texts related to the Legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, the reconstruction of the history of their textual traditions, and the study of this Legend in all its aspects: religious, cultural, and anthropological.
In this paper we propose a brief introduction to the story of the Legend of the Seven Sleepers in... more In this paper we propose a brief introduction to the story of the Legend of the Seven Sleepers in Easter Literatures. A critical edition of the oldest Arabic version with its Italian traslation is also proposed.
Ten years after his disappearance, father Paolo Dall’Oglio has left us a spiritual legacy that ha... more Ten years after his disappearance, father Paolo Dall’Oglio has left us a spiritual legacy that has yet to be understood in all its complexity and depth. This brief contribution proposes a reading of the vocation of father Dall’Oglio that highlights three central aspects: the spirituality of the Community of al-Khalil, the choice of dialogue with Islam and civil and social commitment in the Arab world. Each of these aspects is intrinsically linked to the other in a completely original though not exhaustive way. In fact, there are other points of father Dall’Oglio’s vocation that are worthy of attention and reflection. For this reason, this contribution is a first attempt at reading that will require further and desirable insights.
Amazon woman is a literary topos that has crossed a wide variety of literary and cultural traditi... more Amazon woman is a literary topos that has crossed a wide variety of literary and cultural traditions up to our days. In this essay, the author, starting from the classical tradition, analyses the origin of the Amazons theme, by comparing it with the medieval Arabic epic literature, as well as detecting the similarities and differences. In light of this brief analysis, the author does not propose a philological-genealogical reading of the theme, but rather adopts the hermeneutical tools of psychoanalysis to conclude that it is a theme of the universal literature.
This article deals with the intertextual relations between Eastern Christian hagiographical tradi... more This article deals with the intertextual relations between Eastern Christian hagiographical traditions of Late antiquity on one hand, and some texts belonging to the early Islamic religious literature on the other. In the last two centuries, European orientalistic literature has considered the Islamic literature as a basin where past religious traditions have been converged and passively copied. In this contribution I would stress the original activity of early Muslim writers who reworked Eastern Christian legends in order to build a new religious identity as well as to consolidate new boundaries. Accordingly, the key-figure used by wirters of pre-modern Islam is the fighter-horsemanmonk, a kind of sign and symbol of the “common semiotic koine” within the monotheistic tradition (Sizgorich). In this study, I will chose two narrative cycles: some texts relating to the instauration of Christianity in South Arabia, and the Martyrdom of Aretha and his companions in Nağrān (BHG 166). In both cases it is possible to point out mutual borrowings from one tradition to the other. In the former cycle, the Sīra nabawiyya by Ibn Hišām presents two texts whose sources have to be found in Christian hagiography of both Syriac and Geez (old classical Ethiopic) literature. In the latter, a reciprocal interference in both Christian-Muslim directions has been pointed out.
Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Newsletter, Jan 15, 2014
This article offer an overview of the Arabic manuscriot tradition of the Arabic Martyrion of Aret... more This article offer an overview of the Arabic manuscriot tradition of the Arabic Martyrion of Arethas and his companions in Naǧrān as attested in at least three different versions or redactions.
The Apocalypse of Paul is perhaps the most widespread Christian apocalyptic text that spread out ... more The Apocalypse of Paul is perhaps the most widespread Christian apocalyptic text that spread out in Middle Ages in West and East alike. Among the numerous languages in which this Christian apocryphal has been translated, the Arabic version has the richest manuscript tradition (36 witnesses known), after the Latin version (43 witnesses for 8 different redactions). In this study the editio princeps of the oldest known witness, the Arab Sinaitic 461 (10th century), is proposed. It is a version probably taken from a Greek model, as some lexical and syntactic Hellenisms demonstrate. The edition of the Arabic text is accompanied by an annotated Italian translation. To the three redactions described and studied so far, we must therefore add this one which represent the oldest Arabic translation, the text of which offers us a further evidence of the translation activity that took place in South Palestine, between the 8th and 9th centuries..
Chapitre sur l'edition critique et la critique textuelle du manuel Comparative Oriental Manus... more Chapitre sur l'edition critique et la critique textuelle du manuel Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction lie au projet europeen eponyme.
The fragments published in this article are from Parisinus Arabicus 213, a Christian Arabic manus... more The fragments published in this article are from Parisinus Arabicus 213, a Christian Arabic manuscript belonging to the Egyptian Coptic milieu at the beginning of the 17th century. These fragments are part of a rich Christian theological and spiritual collection wich includes works by the ...
Les themes et sujets du present volume d'hommages que lui dedient plusieurs de ses collegues ... more Les themes et sujets du present volume d'hommages que lui dedient plusieurs de ses collegues et amis, correspondent au profil a la fois focalise et varie de Jacques Grand'Henry, Professeur emerite d'etudes arabes a l'Universite catholique de Louvain. Les domaines couverts sont notamment ceux de la dialectologie arabe descriptive ou historique, de la linguistique historique et comparative, du moyen arabe ou de l'arabe melange tel qu'on le trouve dans les textes medievaux et dans les documents modernes (textes litteraires ou enonces oraux), et de la philologie arabe sous des differents aspects.
2. Fonti del trattato 95 3. La struttura del trattato 96 4. Le citazioni bibliche 97 5. Sulaymãn ... more 2. Fonti del trattato 95 3. La struttura del trattato 96 4. Le citazioni bibliche 97 5. Sulaymãn al-Gazzi cita Giovanni Damasceno 97 6. Le versioni arabe della Fonte della conoscenza 99 7. L'ambiente linguistico della Chiesa melchita 100 F. Perché Sulaymãn al-Gazzï cita ...
The Martyrium Arethae and His Companions in Naǧrān (BHG 166) is one of the best known and most wi... more The Martyrium Arethae and His Companions in Naǧrān (BHG 166) is one of the best known and most widespread texts of the Christian Eastern martyrological literature. Written in Greek in the second half of the 6th century, probably from a Syriac model, it was translated into several languages, including Arabic, Ethiopian, Armenian and Georgian. Modern scholars studied this work since the 19th century, when the first editions of the texts connected with the tragic events of Naǧrān appeared.
Paolo La Spisa's study provides the critical edition of all the Arabic versions known so far. The Arabic manuscript tradition has transmitted to us ten witnesses, whose in-depth analysis has allowed him to identify three distinct recensions (labelled in the present edition Ar1, Ar2, Ar3). This study intends to offer an updated and corrected edition of some Arabic versions that had already been published in the first decade of the 2000s (Ar1, Ar2), as well as to offer the standard edition of a still unpublished version (Ar3). The edition of each recension is accompanied by an Italian translation and by a historical-philological commentary in which the parallel passages within the Arabic tradition and the intertextual relations with non-Arabic versions are highlighted. In the introduction, not only the criteria for the edition of the texts have been outlined, but the importance and originality of the Arabic versions are highlighted with respect to the previous and subsequent versions, Greek and Ethiopic respectively. Eventually, a brief presentation of the linguistic features of the manuscript texts belonging to the Middle Arabic spectrum, is offered. (Text in Arabic/Italian)
Dans les années 520 de l’ère chrétienne, l’Arabie méridionale fut le théâtre d’un événement excep... more Dans les années 520 de l’ère chrétienne, l’Arabie méridionale fut le théâtre d’un événement exceptionnel dans l’histoire universelle : le massacre d’une population chrétienne par un souverain juif. Depuis près de 150 ans, les rois de Himyar (le Yémen actuel et une grande partie de l’Arabie séoudite) accordaient leur soutien au judaïsme. Les Éthiopiens du royaume d’Aksûm avaient réussi, vers le début du VIe siècle, à faire de Himyar un royaume tributaire. Mais en 523, le prince qu’ils avaient peut-être installé sur le trône se rebella. Il entreprit d’éliminer les chrétiens de son royaume qu’il estimait alliés aux Aksûmites. L’épisode le plus célèbre de cette entreprise – le massacre des chrétiens de la grande oasis de Najrân (en Arabie Séoudite aujourd’hui, près de la frontière du Yémen) – est connu par une multitude de sources ; inscriptions sudarabiques et éthiopiennes, récits syriaques, textes grecs historiques ou hagiographiques. La plus importante de ces sources, le Martyre d’Aréthas, déjà publié dans les Monographies, existe aussi dans de nombreuses versions orientales, en arménien, en géorgien, en arabe et en éthiopien. Le colloque de novembre 2008 dont les actes sont publiés ici visait à comprendre le contexte dans lequel ces écrits ont été produits et à démêler leurs rapports : les versions arabes et éthiopiennes, par exemple, offrent quelques données absentes du grec. Le colloque a également permis des progrès dans la compréhension des récits syriaques, qu’il s’agisse de leur auteur supposé ou des rapports entre les différentes versions d’un même récit. Le colloque avait aussi pour but de replacer les événements de Najrân dans un contexte plus large, en étudiant la ville et son histoire, le développement du monothéisme en Arabie du Sud et le rôle, tant politique que religieux, joué par l’Éthiopie, pour qui le Yémen représentait une chasse gardée.
The article discusses the novel ʿAzāzīl by the Egyptian writer Yūsuf Zaydān. Published in 2009, ʿ... more The article discusses the novel ʿAzāzīl by the Egyptian writer Yūsuf Zaydān. Published in 2009, ʿAzāzīl is both a historical novel set in ancient Egypt and an allegorical representation of Modernity along the lines of Nağīb Maḥfūẓ’s fictional works. In ʿAzāzīl, however, Zaydān does not evoke the glory of the Pharaohs, but rather the social and religious turbulence of the fifth century, which marked a turning point in Egyptian history. The struggle between Christians and Pagans described in the novel alludes to the present-day clash between lay scientific thought and religious fanaticism. The heated debate raised by this novel in Egypt and the scorching criticism directed at Zaydān by the
Coptic Egyptian Church demonstrate that the struggle is not over yet.
Geografie interiori: mappare l’interiorità nel cristianesimo, nell’ebraismo e nell’islam medievali, 2020
This contribution presents the work of Abū al-Nūrī, a mystic who lived in Baghdad
between the 9th... more This contribution presents the work of Abū al-Nūrī, a mystic who lived in Baghdad between the 9th and 10th centuries. Large excerpts from The Stations of Hearts, his most famous work, are presented in Italian translation. Eventually, some comparisons with other authors of the mystical Arabic literature are proposed.
Caroline Macé e.a., « Chapter 3. Textual Criticism and Text Editing », in A. Bausi , general ed.,... more Caroline Macé e.a., « Chapter 3. Textual Criticism and Text Editing », in A. Bausi , general ed., Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction, Hamburg: Tredition Press, 2015, pp. 321-465
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Papers by Paolo La Spisa
Interdepartmental Research Unit of the University of Florence, entitled
Cultures, texts and traditions of the Christian East in dialogue with
Europe and Islam (EuTradOr). The aim of this project is the critical edition
of the texts related to the Legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, the
reconstruction of the history of their textual traditions, and the study of
this Legend in all its aspects: religious, cultural, and anthropological.
Interdepartmental Research Unit of the University of Florence, entitled
Cultures, texts and traditions of the Christian East in dialogue with
Europe and Islam (EuTradOr). The aim of this project is the critical edition
of the texts related to the Legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, the
reconstruction of the history of their textual traditions, and the study of
this Legend in all its aspects: religious, cultural, and anthropological.
Paolo La Spisa's study provides the critical edition of all the Arabic versions known so far. The Arabic manuscript tradition has transmitted to us ten witnesses, whose in-depth analysis has allowed him to identify three distinct recensions (labelled in the present edition Ar1, Ar2, Ar3). This study intends to offer an updated and corrected edition of some Arabic versions that had already been published in the first decade of the 2000s (Ar1, Ar2), as well as to offer the standard edition of a still unpublished version (Ar3). The edition of each recension is accompanied by an Italian translation and by a historical-philological commentary in which the parallel passages within the Arabic tradition and the intertextual relations with non-Arabic versions are highlighted. In the introduction, not only the criteria for the edition of the texts have been outlined, but the importance and originality of the Arabic versions are highlighted with respect to the previous and subsequent versions, Greek and Ethiopic respectively. Eventually, a brief presentation of the linguistic features of the manuscript texts belonging to the Middle Arabic spectrum, is offered. (Text in Arabic/Italian)
ISBN : 2916716238
Coptic Egyptian Church demonstrate that the struggle is not over yet.
between the 9th and 10th centuries. Large excerpts from The Stations of Hearts, his most
famous work, are presented in Italian translation. Eventually, some comparisons
with other authors of the mystical Arabic literature are proposed.