Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi
Encyclopedia
Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi (October 25, 1742, Castelnuovo Nigra
, Piedmont
– March 23, 1831, Parma
) was an Italian Christian Hebraist
. He studied in Ivrea
and Turin
. In October 1769, he was appointed professor of Oriental languages at the University of Parma
, where he spent the rest of his life. His inaugural lecture on the causes of the neglect of Hebrew study was published in 1769 at Turin.
, he determined on the collection of the variant readings of the Old Testament
, and for that purpose collected a large number of manuscripts and old editions. In order to determine their bibliographical position he undertook a critical study of the annals of Hebrew typography, beginning with a special preliminary disquisition in 1776, and dealing with the presses of Ferrara
(Parma, 1780), Sabbionetta (Erlangen, 1783), and, later, Cremona
(Parma, 1808), as preparatory to his two great works, Annales Hebræo-Typographici (Parma, 1795, sec. xv.) and Annales Hebræo-Typographici ab 1501 ad 1540 (Parma, 1799). This formed the foundation of his serious study of the early history of Hebrew printing; see Incunabula.
In connection with this work he drew up a Dizionario Storico degli Autori Ebrei e delle loro Opere (Parma, 1802; German translation by Hamberger, Leipzig, 1839), in which he summed up in alphabetical order the bibliographical notices contained in Wolf
, and, among other things, fixed the year of Rashi
's birth; he also published a catalogue of his own manuscripts (1803) and books (1812). All these studies were in a measure preparatory and subsidiary to his Variæ Lectiones Veteris Testamenti (Parma, 1784–88), still the most complete collection of variants of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. In order to compile it he visited all the chief libraries of Italy
, and through its compilation he obtained the knighthood of St. George at the court of Parma and seductive offers from Pavia
, Madrid
, and Rome
. As examples of the use of his work he issued a specimen of the Targum
on Esther
(Rome, 1782; 2d ed., revised, Tübingen, 1783).
He was also interested in the polemics of Judaism
and Christianity
, and wrote on this subject his Della Vana Aspettazione degli Ebrei del loro Re Messia (Parma, 1773), which he defended in a pamphlet two years later; he further published a list of anti-Christian writers, Bibliotheca Judaica Antichristiana (Parma, 1800). A select Hebrew lexicon, in which he utilized Parḥon's work (Parma, 1805), and an introduction to Hebrew (ib. 1815) conclude the list of those of his works which are of special Jewish interest. Rossi died in Parma in 1831.
Castelnuovo Nigra
Castelnuovo Nigra is a comune in the Province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 40 km north of Turin.-External links:*...
, Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
– March 23, 1831, Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
) was an Italian Christian Hebraist
Christian Hebraist
A Christian Hebraist is a scholar of Hebrew who comes from a Christian family background/belief, or is a Jewish adherent of Christianity. The main area of study is that commonly known as the Old Testament to Christians , but Christians have occasionally taken an interest in the Talmud, and...
. He studied in Ivrea
Ivrea
Ivrea is a town and comune of the province of Turin in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. Situated on the road leading to the Aosta Valley , it straddles the Dora Baltea and is regarded as the centre of the Canavese area. Ivrea lies in a basin that, in prehistoric times, formed a great lake...
and Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
. In October 1769, he was appointed professor of Oriental languages at the University of Parma
University of Parma
The University of Parma is one of the oldest universities in the world, founded in the 11th century. It is organised in twelve faculties. The University of Parma has currently about 30,000 students.-History:...
, where he spent the rest of his life. His inaugural lecture on the causes of the neglect of Hebrew study was published in 1769 at Turin.
Scholarly writings
De Rossi devoted himself to three chief lines of investigation—-typographical, bibliographical, and text-critical. Influenced by the example of Benjamin KennicottBenjamin Kennicott
Benjamin Kennicott was an English churchman and Hebrew scholar.He was born at Totnes, Devon. He succeeded his father as master of a charity school, but the generosity of some friends enabled him to go to Wadham College, Oxford, in 1744, and he distinguished himself in Hebrew and divinity...
, he determined on the collection of the variant readings of the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
, and for that purpose collected a large number of manuscripts and old editions. In order to determine their bibliographical position he undertook a critical study of the annals of Hebrew typography, beginning with a special preliminary disquisition in 1776, and dealing with the presses of Ferrara
Ferrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
(Parma, 1780), Sabbionetta (Erlangen, 1783), and, later, Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
(Parma, 1808), as preparatory to his two great works, Annales Hebræo-Typographici (Parma, 1795, sec. xv.) and Annales Hebræo-Typographici ab 1501 ad 1540 (Parma, 1799). This formed the foundation of his serious study of the early history of Hebrew printing; see Incunabula.
In connection with this work he drew up a Dizionario Storico degli Autori Ebrei e delle loro Opere (Parma, 1802; German translation by Hamberger, Leipzig, 1839), in which he summed up in alphabetical order the bibliographical notices contained in Wolf
Johann Christoph Wolf
Johann Christoph Wolf was a German Christian Hebraist, polyhistor, and collector of books....
, and, among other things, fixed the year of Rashi
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...
's birth; he also published a catalogue of his own manuscripts (1803) and books (1812). All these studies were in a measure preparatory and subsidiary to his Variæ Lectiones Veteris Testamenti (Parma, 1784–88), still the most complete collection of variants of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. In order to compile it he visited all the chief libraries of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and through its compilation he obtained the knighthood of St. George at the court of Parma and seductive offers from Pavia
Pavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...
, Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. As examples of the use of his work he issued a specimen of the Targum
Targum
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way", "method", or "path"...
on Esther
Book of Esther
The Book of Esther is a book in the Ketuvim , the third section of the Jewish Tanakh and is part of the Christian Old Testament. The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim...
(Rome, 1782; 2d ed., revised, Tübingen, 1783).
He was also interested in the polemics of Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, and wrote on this subject his Della Vana Aspettazione degli Ebrei del loro Re Messia (Parma, 1773), which he defended in a pamphlet two years later; he further published a list of anti-Christian writers, Bibliotheca Judaica Antichristiana (Parma, 1800). A select Hebrew lexicon, in which he utilized Parḥon's work (Parma, 1805), and an introduction to Hebrew (ib. 1815) conclude the list of those of his works which are of special Jewish interest. Rossi died in Parma in 1831.
Works
- De praecipuis caussis, et momentis neglectae a nonnullis Hebraicarum litterarum disciplinae disquisitio elenchtica, Augustae Taurinorum : ex Tipographia Regia, 1769 (on-line)
- Della vana aspettazione degli ebrei del loro re Messia dal compimento di tutte le epoche trattato del teol. Giambern. De-Rossi, Parma : dalla Stamperia reale, 1773; Roma : Marini e Co., 1840 (on-line)
- Epithalamia exoticis linguis reddita, Parmae : ex regio typographeo, 1775
- De hebraicae typographiae originae ac primitiis, seu antiquis ac rarissimis hebraicorum librorum editionibus saeculi 15. disquisitio historico-critica, Parmae : ex Regio typographeo, 1776 (on-line)
- Specimen variarum lectionum sacri textus et chaldaica estheris additamenta cum Latina versione ac notis ex singulari codice privatae bibliothecae Pii VI P. O. M. edidit variisque dissertationibus illustravit Iohannes Bernardus De Rossi, Accedit eiusdem auctoris appendix de celeberr. codice tritaplo samaritano bibliothecae Barberinae, Romae : sumptibus Venantii Monaldini Bibliopolae, 1782 (on-line)
- Io. Bernhard De Rossi, Annales typographiae ebraicae Sabionetenses appendice aucti. Ex Italicis Latinos fecit m. Io. Frid. Roos, collega, Erlangae : sumtibus Io. Iac. Palm., 1783 (on-line)
- Variae lectiones Veteris Testamenti ex immensa mss. editorumq. codicum congerie haustae et ad Samar. textum, ad vetustiss. versiones, ad accuratiores sacrae criticae fontes ac leges examinatae opera ac studio Johannis Bern. De-Rossi. Prolegomena, clavis codicum, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Parmae : ex regio typographeo, 1784 (on-line)
- Annales Hebraeo-typographici sec. 15. descripsit fusoque commentario illustravit Joh. Bernardus De-Rossi, Parmae : ex Regio Typographeo, 1795 (on-line)
- Joh. Bernardi De-Rossi Scholia critica in V. T. libros seu Supplementa ad varias sacri textus lectiones, Parmae : ex regio typographeo, 1798 (on-line)
- Annales hebraeo-typographici ab an. MDI ad MDXL digessit notisque hist.-criticis instruxit Joh. Bernardus De-Rossi, Parmae : ex Regio tipographeo, 1799 (on-line)
- Dizionario storico degli autori ebrei e delle loro opere, Parma : dalla Stamperia Imperiale, 1802 (Volume I, on-line) e (Volume II, on-line)
- Dizionario storico degli autori arabi più celebri e delle principali loro opere, Parma : dalla Stamperia Imperiale, 1808 (on-line)
- Mss. codices Hebraici biblioth. I. B. De-Rossi ling. Orient. prof. accurate ab eodem descripti et illustrati. Accedit appendix qua continentur mss. codices reliqui al. linguarum, Parma : dalla Stamperia Imperiale, 1803 (Volume I, on-line) (Volume II, on-line) (Volume III, on-line)
- Annali ebreo-tipografici di Cremona distesi dal dottore G. Bernardo De Rossi prof. di lingue orientali, Parma : dalla Stamperia Imperiale, 1808 (on-line)
- Il libro di Giobbe tradotto dal testo originale dal dottore G. Bernardo De-Rossi, Parma : dalla Stamperia reale, 1812 (on-line)
- Introduzione allo studio della lingua ebrea, dell'importanza di questo studio, e della maniera di ben instituirlo, del cavaliere G. Bernardo De-Rossi preside della facoltà di teologia e professore di lingue orientali, Parma : dalla stamperia Blanchon, 1815 (on-line)
- Introduzione alla Sacra Scrittura che comprende le prenozioni più importanti relative ai testi originali e alle loro versioni del professore G. Bernardo De-Rossi preside della facoltà teologica, Parma : dalla stamperia ducale, 1817 (on-line)
- Sinopsi della ermeneutica sacra o dell'arte di ben interpretare la Sacra Scrittura del professore G. Bernardo De-Rossi preside della facoltà teologica e riformatore nel magistrato supremo dell'università, Parma : dalla stamperia ducale, 1819 (on-line)
Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography
- Nuova Enciclopedia Italiana
- Steinschneider, MoritzMoritz SteinschneiderMoritz Steinschneider was a Bohemian bibliographer and Orientalist. He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider , who was not only an expert Talmudist, but was also well versed in secular science...
, Catalogus Librorum Hebræorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, s.v.