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Reposted by Paul Babinski

Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

We're thrilled to be co-sponsoring the 2026 E.H. Gombrich Lecture Series next week, 22-24 September at 6:00 pm BST, with @warburginstitute.bsky.social! Dr. Anthony Grafton of @princeton.edu will deliver this three-part lecture series on the life & controversies of Joseph Scaliger. Details below:

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Paris copy of the 1516 polyglot Genoa Psalter, in which a sixteenth-century reader has added the Lord’s Prayer and Sūrah al-Fātiḥah in Arabic and Latin, both copied from Guillaume Postel’s Grammatica Arabica (ca. 1538). BnF - Arsenal FOL-T-188

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Sixteenth-century Arabic-Turkish dictionary (Lüġat-i Aḫterī), annotated by Louis de Byzance (1647-1722), born Raphaël Levi in Istanbul, a Jewish convert to Catholicism who was ordained a priest at the Oratory in Paris. BnF, ms Supplément Turc 262

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Persian-Turkish rhyming dictionary (Tuḥfe-i Şāhidī), glossed in French by André Du Ryer (1580-1660), the orientalist responsible for the first printed translation of the Gulistān and the first French translation of the Qur’an from Arabic. BnF, ms Turc 206

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

“Pity those who remain helpless in ignorance”: notes in Arabic, Persian, & Turkish by the French orientalist & librarian Louis Picques (1637-1699). Picques copied the proverb from the Persian-Turkish rhyming dictionary he was annotating (Tuḥfe-i Şāhidī). BnF, ms Suppl. Turc 312

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Eighteenth-century copy of the Pandnāma traditionally attributed to ʿAṭṭār, made "for the use of the jeunes de langue of France", apprentice diplomatic interpreters in Istanbul, one of whom annotated the manuscript. BnF, ms Supplément Persan 648

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Paris copy of the 1516 Genoa Psalter (which presents the text in Hebrew, Latin, Arabic, Greek, and Aramaic) from the library of the Couvent des Jacobins de la rue Saint-Honoré. Interestingly, a reader vocalized a portion of the Arabic translation. BnF, RES-A-491

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Persian literature in the Mediterranean: a copy of the Gulistān with annotations in Italian and transliterated Turkish, today in the French National Library. BnF, ms Supplément Persan 860

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Philological waste: pages of seventeenth-century notes listing transliterated Turkish words with their equivalents in Italian, French, or Latin, reused to form pasteboards for the binding of a Persian manuscript. BnF, ms Supplément Persan 759

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

“Le dernier jour du monde”: late seventeenth-century glosses, in Turkish and French, from a Paris copy of al-Zamakhsharī’s Muqaddimat al-adab, annotated by Louis de Byzance, priest of the Oratoire. BnF, ms Supplément Persan 449

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

An Arabic-Persian-Turkish glossary, copied in the early 18th century by one of the great orientalist autodidacts, Henry Wild, a tailor from Norwich who was said to have taught himself Hebrew, Arabic, & Persian, among other languages. University of Sydney Library, ms Add. Ms. 56

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

A Turkish manuscript translation of the Gospels at the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, which appears to be independent of the ʿAlī Ufḳī, Kieffer, and Seaman translations. Notably, it uses both Coptic and Vulgate chapter divisions, and renders “Jesus” as ايسوس (Īsūs). ms L1/B.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Notes in a 1615 copy of Buxtorf’s Hebrew lexicon, charting the life of its owner, William Saumarez Smith, after acquiring it in 1860 while at Trinity College, Cambridge: ordained, elected fellow, years in India. 1890: Bishop of Sydney. Last entry, in another hand: “died 1909”

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Found an interesting little 19th-century lithographed Arabic grammar, with text and tables reproduced from handwritten copy. The author, Nicolas Perron (1798-1876) was a French physician, Arabist, and educator.

Title page of Perron’s "Abrégé de grammaire ou principes les plus généraux de l’arabe vulgaire" (Paris, 1832).

Opening showing pages 12–13, with Arabic verb paradigms and French grammatical commentary.

Facing pages (112-113) with an Arabic grammatical chart arranged in a branching layout and French explanatory text with Arabic examples.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Copenhagen copy of Hoca Mesʿūd’s Ferhengnāme, a 14th-century Turkish translation from Saʿdī’s Būstān, acquired in Leipzig in 1677 by the Danish scholar Hans Wandal, whose ownership note includes an Arabic proverb: “Assure yourself of victory after patience”. CKB, ms Cod. Turc. 20

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

A manuscript of Petraeus's Coptic-Arabic-Latin edition of Psalm 1, with annotations that were left out of the 1663 printing, presented in 1661 to the Danish King Frederick III. CKB, ms Or. Arch. 2(2).

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Oxford Bibliographical Society @obs1922.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Borna Izadpanah on 'Printing the Qur’an across Empires' All welcome to our final event of the academic year - in person in Oxford, or online (email secretary@oxbibsoc.org.uk).

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

“Greetings, O foremost among the masters of the languages of the Franks”: a commendatory poem, written in Turkish by an unidentified orientalist, prefacing Theodor Petraeus’s 1663 edition of the first Psalm in Coptic and Arabic.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

“O Lord, always make Your grace a guide for me / Do not show me that path which does not lead to You”: a line of Turkish poetry (by Fużūlī) in an annotation on the “straight path” in Sūrah al-Fātiḥah by the seventeenth-century orientalist Theodor Petraeus. CKB, ms Or.Arch. 2(1)

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

A wonderful final project by a student this semester, now proudly on display in my office: a hand-colored reproduction of Nikolaus Meldemann’s composite woodcut 360-degree panorama of the 1529 Ottoman Siege of Vienna, in English translation and mounted on a rotating platform.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

“God’s will is my will”: an entry in Arabic, Syriac, and Danish by a traveler from Denmark, Lauge Christensen, in the friendship album of the English Arabist William Bedwell (c. 1563-1632). Leiden, ms BPL 2753

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Ottoman and Turkish Studies Vienna @turkishstudies.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Upcoming conference: Mecmuas in the Ottoman World. Interdisciplinary Approaches and Current Research 4–6 June 2026 mecmuaconference.univie.ac.at

Poster "Mecmuas in the Ottoman World" Conference

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

“To my lord Toma ibn Erben, who is currently in Saumur, a city in France on the river Lijeris (Ligeris, i.e. Loire)” Address for a letter from the Egyptian Copt, Yūsuf ibn Abū Dhaqn to the Dutch Orientalist Thomas Erpenius. Leiden, ms or. 1228

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Forschungsbibliothek Gotha @fbgotha.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Commentaries and glosses functioned as vehicles for the study of astronomy. @nadineloehr.bsky.social presents "Reflections on the Many Forms of Commentary in Astronomical and Astrological Manuscripts" in this week's Gotha Manuscript Talk 📆 Wednesday, 1 April 2026, 6:15 CET 1/2

a manuscript containing a drawing with circles and marginal notes

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Nineteenth-century collection of Turkish proverbs with French translation, collected by Adrien Royer from a dictionary compiled at the end of the seventeenth century by Antoine Arcère (1664-1699). BULAC, ms Turc 17a

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

“Can the soul be separated from the body?”: Ottoman poetry, recorded in transliterated Turkish by a seventeenth-century German traveler in an album with Ottoman decorative paper. ÖNB, ms Cod. 10313

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

A Paris copy of André Du Ryer’s 1630 Turkish grammar, annotated by a seventeenth-century French orientalist studying Turkish with the help of a manuscript Persian-Turkish dictionary. From the library of the Abbey of Saint-Victor. BnF-Arsenal, 4-BL-214

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

I was very happy to be part of this special issue on Julia's wonderful book, which I used as an opportunity to reflect on the broader history of Persian literature in Europe and the limits of viewing translation and literary history through a national lens.

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Julia Hartley @ritorneropoeta.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

It was so intellectually rewarding to work with @global-ih.bsky.social on a special section on my book! The essays by @paulbabinski.bsky.social and @drjoeford.bsky.social extended the reflection temporally, while @saraharens.bsky.social and Richard Hibbitt made me reflect on my critical method.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

“God will bring ease after hardship”: 1593 album amicorum entry by Franciscus Raphelengius (1539-1597), quoting from Ecclesiastes (in Hebrew), Apollinaris’s Metaphrase of the Psalms (in Greek), and the Qur’an (in Arabic). Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ms 74 G 21

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Parting gift: A manuscript of al-Ḥarīrī’s Maqāmāt given to a Danish student, Povel Lemming, by his teacher, the great French orientalist Silvestre de Sacy. Its margins are filled with annotations by an earlier French student of Arabic who read the text using a Turkish source.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Twelfth-century Maghribi Qur’an owned by Benito Arias Montano (1529-1598) and Franciscus Raphelengius (1539-1597). Raphelengius used the Qur’an in compiling the first major Arabic dictionary printed in Europe. Uppsala University Library, ms O Vet. 77

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Rushed work: whoever copied this manuscript of Juan Gabriel of Teruel’s Latin Qur'an translation started by only copying the Arabic & the Latin translation, leaving blank columns for Latin transliteration & notes. By the end, however, they simply filled all columns with the translation.

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Theodor Dunkelgrün @theodunkelgrun.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

By way of introduction: my book, The Multiplicity of Scripture: The Making of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible (Toronto: PIMS 2025) pims.ca/publication/... Available in North America via @uoftpress.bsky.social, in Europe via @brepols.net, and in digital form by @degruyterbrill.bsky.social

pims.ca

The Multiplicity of Scripture: The Making of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible – Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Fabrica linguae Arabicae, a 1639 Arabic-Italian-Latin dictionary by Dominicus Germanus de Silesia, notable for the woodcut calligraphy of its title page and its tree of Arabic verb forms. This copy was owned by the German orientalist Siegmund Fraenkel (1855-1909)

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Not exactly news (since the semester began in August), but I’m very happy to have started a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Georgia.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

A pleasant surprise at the Hargrett Library at the University of Georgia: Mark Pattison’s copy of the 1629 edition of Scaliger’s De emendatione temporum, with a few annotations and a lovely nineteenth-century manicule

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

1656 edition of Thomas Erpenius’s Grammatica Arabica, with the annotations of a seventeenth-century student of Arabic, recording what appears to be instruction from Erpenius’s student (and the editor of this edition), Jacob Golius (1596-1667).

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

If there's anything more exciting than seeing a book you work on in an exhibition, it's surely being invited to talk about it. Very excited for this event next month! 📷 Lancelot Browne's annotated copy of Avicenna in Arabic at the @rcpmuseum.bsky.social exhibition, 'A body of knowledge'.

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Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) @csmc-hamburg.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Once a hub of Ottoman culture, Süleyman Efendi’s library was scattered by conquest. In our PhD Research Series, Rawda El-Hajji traces these manuscripts, showing how they help reconstruct lost intellectual communities and reveal the fate of cultural heritage in times of conflict: uhh.de/csmc-el-hajji

Ms. 3406, Süleyman Efendi’s endowment deed on folio 1r. Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, ms. 3406 © 2023 by AMS Historica is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Rawda El-Hajji visiting the Church of Our Lady of Buda Castle, Budapest. © Ashraf Sarip

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

This Friday I'll give a talk online (for UPenn's Schoenberg Institute) on the collection of Islamic manuscripts at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. Please come (link below)! I’ll be highlighting some of the new finds made by the Copenhagen team of the EuQu project.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Early modern manicule left by an orientalist in a Bologna copy of Saʿdī’s Gulistān. It points to an Ottoman marginal note with the fifteenth-century Turkish translation (by Manyaslı Mahmud) of a passage in the Persian text. Bologna University Library, ms 3280.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

I’m very excited to be speaking on March 11 at the University of Bologna on the history of collecting Islamic manuscripts in Europe, for the series “At the Intersection of Multiple Memories. Collecting Manuscripts in Early Modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire: The Marsili Case”

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

“Come to our house without ceremony / For what ceremony is there between you and us” - Persian verse written by Muḥibb ʿAlī, the teacher of a seventeenth-century German traveler in Shamakhi, Adam Olearius (1599-1671), in the notebook Olearius used for studying Persian. SBB-PK, ms or. oct. 3

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

The three languages of Ottoman learning: notes on Turkish grammar (with the conjugation of "sevmek", to love) recorded by the English orientalist John Greaves (1602-1652) on the flyleaf of a Persian-language grammar of Arabic, also annotated by Greaves. Bodleian, ms Pococke 28.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

A fascinating meeting of two manuscript cultures. The Newberry manuscript uses Ottoman silhouetted paper (with columns for the two hemistichs of Ottoman poetry), turned 90° to record Latin/French sayings. For reference: a collection of Turkish poetry (KB-Copenhagen, ms Cod. Turc. 21)

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波鴻漫錄 || Sven Osterkamp @schrift-sprache.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Out now in OA: a volume celebrating (i.a.) the centenary of the East Asia Department at Berlin State Library! 🎉🥳 > doi.org/10.48796/202... Incl. sth by Martina Siebert & myself on Sinica in Berlin in the 1680s, also two short pieces on contemporary "Chinese alphabets" and Lord's Prayer collections.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

“To give an account of one’s reading is in some sort to give an account of one’s life”: A recent discovery for me, William Dean Howells’s 1895 My Literary Passions, a portrait of Howells as a young Ohio reader, told through the authors who were the stations of his literary education.

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Paul Babinski @paulbabinski.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

I'm giving a talk tomorrow (10 EST/4 CET) on "The Orientalist Librarian in Early Modern Europe". Please join! I'll discuss the role of the librarian in scholarship, Islamic manuscripts, and the history of collections-focused research.

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