The main title page
The separate, ornate dedication title page
A
dictionary or, to use a much more impressive synonym, a gazophylacium of the
Persian language, with matching terms in Italian, Latin, and French (Amsterdam,
1684). Notes: The Carmelite mission to Persia, initiated in 1604 by Pope
Clement VIII with the support of Sigismund III Vasa of Poland, resulted in many
cultural exchanges, significant among them linguistic works on a two-way
street. Thesauri, grammars, dictionaries, translations into and from Persian, were
produced, including the first Persian version of St Thomas Aquinas’ Summa
contra Gentiles (ms. Vaticano persiano 59). The Carmelites set up the first printing press in Persia. The
Discalced Carmelite Ange de
Saint-Joseph (1636-1697) would probably have trained in Rome before travelling
East. A found record of a Teheran reprint of 2013 provided me with the name of
his collaborator-editor, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Mar’ashi, whose name appears at the
head-of-title in his own language. This record also supplied me with the
transliterated Persian not to be found on the first record I uncovered, at the
Carmelite Library in Boxmeer in the Netherlands. As the pictures show, ‘Gazophylacium
linguae Persarum’ is arranged alphabetically in Italian, with cross indexes
from the Latin and French. A fascinating short history of the Carmelites
in Persia in the 17th century can be read in the Encyclopaedia Iranica here: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/carmelites-in-persia
Blessing in Italian, Latin, French, and Persian
The Index that leads readers to the Latin equivalents in the main text
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