LANCI Michele Angelo Dissertazione storico-critica su gli Omireni e loro forme di scrivere trovate ne’codici vaticani… [Suivi de:] Articulo di Eben Caliduno sull’antica varia arte di scrivere appresso gli arabi.

First edition of this interesting dissertation on Himyarite script.

Michelangelo Lanci (1779-1867) was enrolled at the Nolfi College where he studied Italian, French, and Latin, before graduating in 1804 with a degree in philosophy, theology, civil and canon law. He then went to Rome where he studied Greek, Hebrew, Siro-Chaldean, and Arabic and obtained the chair of Arabic languages at the University La Sapienza.

Lanci is the author of several dissertations, this one on the ancient Himyarite or Homerite script. “In spite of the author’s scientific knowledge and the comparisons he has made, we are not more advanced on this point of antiquity, and we still do not know what the ancient writing of the Arabs of Yemen was” (Journal Asiatique).

Himyar was an ancient pre-Islamic kingdom in Yemen that reached its peak in the early 1st century, forming an empire that controlled much of southern Arabia.

The book also contains the publication of an Arabic fragment by Ibn-Khaldun, relating to ancient Arabic scripts. The plates reproduce the Homerite script and a comparison with modern Arabic letters.

Very fine copy.