Alessandro Bausi
Alessandro Bausi (1963, MA 1988 University of Florence, PhD 1992 Naples Oriental Institute) is Full Professor for Ethiopian Studies at Sapienza Università di Roma, Faculty of Humanities, Department Storia Antropologia Religioni Arte Spettacolo (November 2023–).
Formerly Assistant (1995) and Associate Professor (2002) of Ethiopic Language and Literature at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, he has been Full Professor (W3) for Ethiopian Studies (Äthiopistik) at the Universität Hamburg, Faculty of Humanities, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Abteilung für Afrikanistik und Äthiopistik (September 2009–October 2023). He has been the editor of the journal Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies (2009–2023) and of its Supplements series (2013–2023), and of the series Aethiopistische Forschungen (2010–2023). He is consultant for Gǝʿǝz and Ethiopian and Eritrean studies for several other series and journals, including the Scriptores Aethiopici of the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (2010–), and the Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (2011–). Editor of the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (2010–2014), Chair of the Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies networking programme (funded by the European Science Foundation 2009–2014), and head of the European Research Council Advanced Grant Project ‘TraCES: From Translation to Creation: Changes in Ethiopic Style and Lexicon from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages’ (2014–2019), he is now heading the long-term project of the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg ‘Beta maṣāḥǝft: Die Schriftkultur des christlichen Äthiopiens und Eritreas: Eine multimediale Forschungsumgebung’ (2016–2040). He is a member of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at Universität Hamburg (2011–2023, permanent fellow since November 2023) and has been Co-Spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts: Materiality, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures’ (2019–2023). He is a member of several scholarly associations, and of the Academia Europaea, the Accademia Ambrosiana, the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg, and of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
He has extensively published on Ethiopian and Eritrean textual and manuscript cultures and especially contributed on the earliest phase of ancient scribal, linguistic, and literary history, epigraphy, canonical, hagiographical, and liturgical collections, and on textual criticism.
Formerly Assistant (1995) and Associate Professor (2002) of Ethiopic Language and Literature at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, he has been Full Professor (W3) for Ethiopian Studies (Äthiopistik) at the Universität Hamburg, Faculty of Humanities, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Abteilung für Afrikanistik und Äthiopistik (September 2009–October 2023). He has been the editor of the journal Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies (2009–2023) and of its Supplements series (2013–2023), and of the series Aethiopistische Forschungen (2010–2023). He is consultant for Gǝʿǝz and Ethiopian and Eritrean studies for several other series and journals, including the Scriptores Aethiopici of the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (2010–), and the Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (2011–). Editor of the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (2010–2014), Chair of the Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies networking programme (funded by the European Science Foundation 2009–2014), and head of the European Research Council Advanced Grant Project ‘TraCES: From Translation to Creation: Changes in Ethiopic Style and Lexicon from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages’ (2014–2019), he is now heading the long-term project of the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg ‘Beta maṣāḥǝft: Die Schriftkultur des christlichen Äthiopiens und Eritreas: Eine multimediale Forschungsumgebung’ (2016–2040). He is a member of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at Universität Hamburg (2011–2023, permanent fellow since November 2023) and has been Co-Spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts: Materiality, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures’ (2019–2023). He is a member of several scholarly associations, and of the Academia Europaea, the Accademia Ambrosiana, the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg, and of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
He has extensively published on Ethiopian and Eritrean textual and manuscript cultures and especially contributed on the earliest phase of ancient scribal, linguistic, and literary history, epigraphy, canonical, hagiographical, and liturgical collections, and on textual criticism.
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from Greek, while later works are much indebted to the Christian Arabic
literary tradition, particularly to the Copto-Arabic one. There is evidence for the
emergence of a rich local written production only later in the course of time.
One would expect that the complexity of this literary history is fully reflected
in the changes in grammar, lexicon and stylistic means of the Ethiopic language,
even though in-depth analyses have been attempted only rarely and no systematic
correlation has been established between lexical, morphological, and stylistic
features. On the one hand, the first step in approaching this delicate question
is a systematic mapping of texts and works attributed on some grounds to
a precise period. Particularly crucial in this regard is listing all texts that can be
attributed to the earlier period of the Ethiopic literary production. On the other
hand, a more pronounced awareness of the role played by the material text carriers
in the transmission of knowledge has introduced new factors, that also can
and must be taken into account.
from Greek, while later works are much indebted to the Christian Arabic
literary tradition, particularly to the Copto-Arabic one. There is evidence for the
emergence of a rich local written production only later in the course of time.
One would expect that the complexity of this literary history is fully reflected
in the changes in grammar, lexicon and stylistic means of the Ethiopic language,
even though in-depth analyses have been attempted only rarely and no systematic
correlation has been established between lexical, morphological, and stylistic
features. On the one hand, the first step in approaching this delicate question
is a systematic mapping of texts and works attributed on some grounds to
a precise period. Particularly crucial in this regard is listing all texts that can be
attributed to the earlier period of the Ethiopic literary production. On the other
hand, a more pronounced awareness of the role played by the material text carriers
in the transmission of knowledge has introduced new factors, that also can
and must be taken into account.
Ethiopic version of the Epistula Constantini imperatoris ad ecclesiam Alexandrinam (CPG no. 8517), unpublished as well, the former is also attested by the earliest Ethiopic canonico-liturgical collection known as the Aksumite collection. An editio princeps of the two epistles in Ethiopic version along with a concisely annotated translation is provided.
This paper describes the available corpus of inscriptions from the Ethiopian and Eritrean regions giving an overview of this documentation. Some of the challenges involved with the inclusion of these documents in the Beta Maṣāḥǝft project are presented: the connection to already digitally encoded texts, the encoding of the parallel fidal (i.e. Ethiopian script) and transcribed text, and the structuring of the data for the pseudo-trilingual inscription RIÉ nos 185 and 270 (that also has a second copy).
There is still a considerable and largely unexplored amount of Gǝ‘ǝz manuscripts preserved in Eritrean libraries, particularly in churches and monasteries, and it is desirable that this documentation is made available to the scholarly attention, as it is being done for other areas. Yet, if the exploration, acquisition, and first scientific study of this material is challenging in itself, of no less importance are questions which still tend to remain in the background, but the importance of which can hardly be underestimated; among these, there are: the cataloguing of the codices, a delicate task which must be done according to the standard and universally applied criteria, involving the description of each and every object in its material constitution and the analytical illustration of its literary contents; the method of approach to the texts, particularly to their edition, which must be achieved following the principles of textual criticism, namely exploiting all the available witnesses of the literary works and reconstructing their mutual relations; the typological analysis of the codex illuminations – if there are – in order to highlight the artistic ‘schools’ and personalities and to reconstruct the influences coming from abroad, mainly the ‘Mediterranean’ milieus. Once these conditions are satisfied, the linguistic, historical, or anthropological use of the texts become possible, and the Gǝ‘ǝz manuscripts will prove to be a priceless source for knowing the Eritrean civilization as a whole.
Errata corrige to the printed version (here corrected in the PDF file): p. 203, l. 11: nulla > nullam; p. 204, n. 25, l. 11: Zendler > Zedler; p. 206, l. 13: Aufrates > Auftrages; p. 209, l. 3: its > his; p. 209, l. 16: aggiunge > aggiugne; p. 212, note, l. 2: 1567-1679 > 1597-1679; p. 215, l. 26: Abyssians > Abyssinians; p. 215, n. 66, l. 2: seems > seem; p. 217, l. 14: praecipiuuntur > praecipiuntur; p. 218, l. 8: interpreratus > interpretatus; p. 220, l. 1: Responfum > Responsum; p. 220, l. 3: Ecclefiam > Ecclesiam; p. 230, l. 32: of the Old Testament > of the historical books of the Old Testament up to; p. 230, l. 33: from a MS from Jerusalem > from MSS from Jerusalem; p. 230, l. 33: in 1666, and at present in London > in 1666; p. 230, l. 35: this MS > these MSS; p. 233, s.v. Beccari 1903, l. 3: geograche > geografiche; p. 236, s.v. Horn 1992: beitrag > Beitrag; p. 240, s.v. Rahlfs 1917, l. 1: äthiopische > äthiopischen; p. 240, s.v. Rahlfs 1918, l. 1: Abessinienklosters > Abessinierklosters; p. 243, s.v. Zendler 1747, l. 1: Zendler > Zedler: Wissenschaften > Wissenschafften; ibid. l. 2: bißhero > bishero; ibid. l. 3: Zendler > Zedler.
With a vast selection of highly representative case studies – from India, Islamic Asia and Spain to Ethiopian cultures, from Ancient Christian to Coptic, and Medieval European domains – this volume deals with manuscripts planned or growing and resulting in time to comprise ‘more than one’. Whatever their contents – the natural world and related recipes, astronomical tables or personal notes, documentary, religious and even highly revered holy texts – codicological and textual features of these manuscripts reveal how similar needs received different answers in varying contexts and times.
Archives are considered to be collections of administrative, legal, commercial and other records or the actual place where they are located. They have become ubiquitous in the modern world, but emerged not much later than the invention of writing. Following Foucault, who first used the word archive in a metaphorical sense as "the general system of the formation and transformation of statements" in his "Archaeology of Knowledge" (1969), postmodern theorists have tried to exploit the potential of this concept and initiated the "archival turn". In recent years, however, archives have attracted the attention of anthropologists and historians of different denominations regarding them as historical objects and "grounding" them again in real institutions. The papers in this volume explore the complex topic of the archive in a historical, systematic and comparative context and view it in the broader context of manuscript cultures by addressing questions like how, by whom and for which purpose were archival records produced, and if they differ from literary manuscripts regarding materials, formats, and producers (scribes).
Contributions by Alessio Agostini, Amsalu Tefera, Sergio Baldi, Alessandro Bausi, Lidia Bettini, Robert Beylot, Marco Bonechi, Antonella Brita, Maria Bulakh, Franco Cardini, Amalia Catagnoti, Alessandro Catastini, Pietro Clemente, Riccardo Contini, Giovanni Dore, Gianfranco Fiaccadori, Massimiliano Franci, Pelio Fronzaroli, Getatchew Haile, Alessandro Gori, Felice Israel, Michael A. Knibb, Paolo La Spisa, Gianfrancesco Lusini, Alberto Nocentini, Denis Nosnitsin, Franca Pecchioli Daddi, Pierluigi Piovanelli, Gloria Rosati, Vincenzo Saladino, Shiferaw Bekele, Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle, Tesfay Tewolde Yohannes, Maria Vittoria Tonietti, Alessandro Triulzi, Andrzej Zaborski †. (Errata corrige: p. xvii, l. 9: instead of: “eccezionalità capacità”, read: “eccezionale capacità”; p. xxvii, l. 10: instead of: “mather”, read: “mother”; l. 19: instead of: “1967”, read: “1969”; p. 69, l. 31: instead of: “siwwārad”, read: “siwwārrad”; p. 491, l. 17: “quali” > ”di quali”; p. 494, ll. 20-21: “Samaritanae-Aethiopcae” > “Samaritanae-Aethiopicae”; p. 495, l. 7: “alla a” > “a”; l. 20: “alla a” > “alla”; l. 21: “sopra” > “sopra)”.)
Errata corrige: p. 38, n. 5: “Pickett” > “Ricketts”; p. 122, l. 14: “1935-1938” > “1883-1885”; p. 155, n. 4, l. 5: “khkh” > “kh”; p. 265, l. 11: “lo retribuisca” > “lo retribuisca 8”; ibid., l. 13: “mi affido” > “9 mi affido”; ibid., l. 14: “gloria e potenza”> “gloria 10 e potenza”; p. 337, l. 1: “khkh” > “kh”.
Errata corrige: p. xxxvi, l. 22: instead of “Tēwodros”, read: “Yoḥannes IV”; p. xxxix, l. 23: instead of “O-W (Wiesbaden, 2010)”, read: “O-X (Wiesbaden, 2010)”.
maṣāḥǝft (Academy of Sciences and Humanities Hamburg), TraCES (ERC Advanced Grant) and
Transmission of Knowledge in the Red Sea Area (Landesforschungsförderung Hamburg), all at
Universität Hamburg, in co-sponsorship with the PAThs project (ERC Advanced Grant) of Sapienza
Università di Roma, and in cooperation with the projects CMCL (Hamburg and Rome), Syriaca.
org, IslHornAfr (ERC Advanced Grant, Copenhagen) and Ethiopian Manuscripts Archives
(IRHT, Paris).
The aim of the workshop is to have an informal exchange of practices and outcomes and to discuss
among a group of interested parties the following points:
• interactions between projects of digitisation of catalogues of manuscripts from the Christian
Orient
• alignment of authority lists practices for Clavis identifiers, ancient places and ancient people
• standards for the reuse of primary canonical texts
• exploitation of common metadata standards for further outputs
• future development perspectives for digital resources in the field
• further points of common interest emerging during the presentations.
A round of presentations of aspects of each project’s efforts will take place, with a specific focus
on one point of common discussion, followed by a forum of open discussion in each of 3 sessions
about (1) ancient places, (2) literary works and (3) manuscripts.
http://betamasaheft.eu/Dillmann/
Guidelines on the use of this web application can be found directly on the homepage and further instructions are available under the menu "Tutorial". A detailed description of the app is given in the "About" section. We welcome feedback on all aspects of this project.
Research Networking Programme ‘Comparative
Oriental Manuscript Studies’, funded by the
European Science Foundation in the years
2009–2014. It is the first attempt to introduce a
wide audience to the entirety of the manuscript
cultures of the Mediterranean East.
The chapters reflect the state of the art
in such fields as codicology, palaeography,
textual criticism and text editing, cataloguing,
and manuscript conservation as applied to a
wide array of language traditions including
Arabic, Armenian, Avestan, Caucasian Albanian,
Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Coptic, Ethiopic,
Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Slavonic,
Syriac, and Turkish.
Seventy-seven scholars from twenty-one
countries joined their efforts to produce
the handbook. The resulting reference work
can be recommended both to scholars and
students of classical and oriental studies and
to all those involved in manuscript research,
digital humanities, and preservation of cultural
heritage.
The volume includes maps, illustrations,
indexes, and an extensive bibliography
Among his interests, one may mention Archaeology and Mediaeval and Early Renaissance Art and Culture, with regard to Italian production in particular; Epigraphy, Codicology and Palaeography; Archaeology, Art and Culture of Byzantium and Christian Orient; East-West Relations from the Middle Ages to Early Modern; Tradition of Antiquity.
The Ethiopian Studies at Hamburg University, where he spent almost regularly some time during the last years, have hugely benefited from his boundless doctrine and generous contribution and dedication. He was one of the coeditors of the "Encyclopaedia Aethiopica" (vols 2-5). His passing is a great and irreparable loss to all of us.
Linking Manuscripts from the Coptic, Ethiopian and Syriac domain:
Present and Future Synergy Strategies.
Aim of the project is to have an informal exchange of practices and outcomes and to discuss among a group of interested parties the following points:
- interactions between projects of digitisation of catalogues of manuscripts from the Christian Orient
- alignment of authority lists practices for Clavis identifiers, ancient places and ancient people
- standards for the reuse of primary canonical texts
- exploitation of common metadata standards for further outputs
- future development perspectives for digital resources in the field
- further points of common interest emerging during the presentations.
A round of presentations of aspects of each project’s efforts wsill take place, with a specific focus on one point of common discussion, followed by a forum of open discussion in each of 3 sessions about (1) places, (2) literary works and (3) manuscripts. We would then like to produce a publication with the outputs of the sessions and of the discussion shortly after the workshop.
was ruled by a Christian sovereign. Terms such as medieval and Middle Ages have been used and continue to appear in historical writing about Ethiopia’s past, but it is important to bear in mind that such terms were used by early modern historiography to establish a time frame for studying European history. Their relevance to non-European contexts is questionable, but they may have value as a means to help situate the study of Ethiopia within the broader field of global history. There are no universally accepted criteria or terms for the periodization of Ethiopian history. However, most works focusing on the centuries between c. 500 and 1500 CE, dates that do not neatly align with major turning points in Ethiopian history, have adopted periodizations that are based on episodes of dynastic succession.