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Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc - Thomas Erpenius - 1617-10-5

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Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc

Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc - Thomas Erpenius - 1617-10-5
FINA IDUnique ID of the page  16403
InstitutionName of Institution. Carpentras, Bibliothèque Inguimbertine
InventoryInventory number. MS 1873, f.308r
AuthorAuthor of the document. Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc
RecipientRecipient of the correspondence. Thomas Erpenius
Correspondence dateDate when the correspondence was written: day - month - year . October 5, 1617
PlacePlace of publication of the book, composition of the document or institution.
Associated personsNames of Persons who are mentioned in the annotation. Isaac Casaubon, Joseph Juste Scaliger
LiteratureReference to literature. Miller 2008, pp. 326-71, Burnett 2020b, p. 936 n. 212
KeywordNumismatic Keywords  Arabic , Islamic
LanguageLanguage of the correspondence French
External LinkLink to external information, e.g. Wikpedia 
Map
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Grand documentOriginal passage from the "Grand document".

'Monsieur j'ay tousiours eue que tout ce que nous avions de l’histoire ara[be] dans les autheurs anciens et modernes, soit grecs, espagnoles, allemantes ou autres estoit si peu de chose, et que particulierement les nomes propres y estoient si peu fidellement rapporter au prix de l’eschantillon que feu monsieur de la Scala en son Eusebe, nous a donné des croniques d’Abraham Zacuthi que j’ay tousiours estimé[,] que s’il y avoit moyen de veoir des autheurs de la nation mesme et si pourroit appr[endre?] toute autre chose que ce qu’on nous en a raconté, attendu le peu de paisible comm[erce] que nous avons eu avec eux durant beaucoup de siecles et la grande difference qu[...] y a de ceste langue la aux notres.... Car j’estimerois beaucoup plus [...] autheur ancien, quelque simplicité ou barbarie qu’il y peust autre que ceux da [...] qui peuvent desguiser supposer ou su- primer une infinité de choses des pl[us] memorable. ... Je vous diray de plus qu’il m’est tombé en main quinze ou vin[gt] medailles Arabiques bien anciennes, que feu Mr Casaubon m’a gardées huict ou dix ans espe- rant tousiours de les pouvoir deschiffrere sans toutefois estre jamais venu a bout, en ayant employe une seulement sur son [...] l’epistre de S. Greg de Nisse ad Eustathiam. Son hoire me les ont re[ndre] depus peu et je les ay monstrer a ces messieurs les Maronites que le [. . .] sieur de Breves a establis en ceste ville lesquels en ont leu et in[terprete] une bonne partie, mais oultre ce quils en a deffaire par l’antiquité [...] reste bien encore du scrupule a cause que les noms de plusieurs rois de Mesopotamie et d’ailleurs qui y sont exprimer ne se treuvent pas man[tionner?] aux histoires que nous avons.'

(Carpentras, Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, MS 1873, f.308r; Miller 2008, pp. 326-7)

['I have always believed that everything we have of Arab history in ancient and modern authors, whether Greek, Spanish, German or others is of such little substance, and that particularly proper names are so unreliably reported therein—compared with the sample that the late Scaliger gave us in his Eusebius of the Chronicles of Abraham Zaccuto, which I have always admired—that if there were a means of see- ing the authors of that nation themselves and if one could learn some- thing totally different from what we have been told, given the meager commerce that we have had with them over so many centuries, and the great difference that there is between this language and ours.... I would add that fifteen or twenty very old Arabic medals have fallen into my hands, which the late Mr. Casaubon kept from me eight or ten years, always hoping to be able to decipher them without nevertheless ever finishing, employing one only for his [...] Letter of S. Gregory Nyssa to Eusthasius. His heir returned them to me not long ago and I have shown them to those Maronites whom [...] Sieur de Breves established in this city and who have read and translated a good part, but beyond what has defeated them by virtue of antiquity [...] there remains still some doubt because of the names of many kings of Mesoptomia and elsewhere found there are not mentioned in the histories which we have.' (partial translation from Miller 2008, pp. 326-7)]

References

  1. ^  Miller, Peter N. (2008), "Peiresc and the Study of Islamic Coins in the Early Seventeenth Century", in: Alan G. Stahl (Ed.), The Rebirth of Antiquity: Numismatics, Archaeology and Classical Studies in the Culture of the Renaissance, Princeton, p. 315-370.
  2. ^  Burnett, Andrew M. (2020), The Hidden Treasures of this Happy Land. A History of Numismatics in Britain from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, BNS Special Publ. No 14 = RNS Special Publ. No 58, London, Spink & Son.