ACATHIST HYMNE TO THE MOTHER OF GOD [in Arabic].... - Lot 92 - Giquello

Lot 92
Go to lot
Estimation :
3500 - 4000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 29 066EUR
ACATHIST HYMNE TO THE MOTHER OF GOD [in Arabic].... - Lot 92 - Giquello
ACATHIST HYMNE TO THE MOTHER OF GOD [in Arabic]. S.l.n.d. [18th century]. In-8 (100 x 170 mm), woodcut frontispiece, 52 pages (numbered 4-56), blond half calf, small cold frieze around the boards, flap on the first board, smooth spine decorated with cold motifs (Period Arabic binding). The only known copy of this eighteenth-century Arabic edition of the Acathist Hymn to the Virgin Mary, which is ignored in all bibliographies. The first described Arabic edition of this Greek hymn is from 1857. A thorough study of this enigmatic book was published in 2018 by Mrs. Ioana Feodorov, from the Institute of Southeast European Studies of the Academy of Bucharest (in New Data on the early Arabic printing in the Levant, and its connection to Romanian press). After various researches and comparisons undertaken on the typographical characters, on the woodcut image of the Annunciation, on the watermark of the paper and on the woodcut coat of arms that accompanies the book, Mrs Feodorv came to the conclusion that it must have been printed in a typographical workshop related to Sylvester I of Antioch, Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and all the East from 1724 to 1766, who in the various monasteries where he resided (St. Abbas, Iasi, St. Spyridon, Bucharest and Beirut) set up printing works from which a number of books in Arabic were produced. She concludes her investigation in these terms: "What we can established for now on basis of the information presented above, is that the Arabic Akathist was printed in the 18th century using some typographic implements that were created in Romanian printing press, or recreated based on Moldavian and Wallachian examples, and that Patriarch Sylvester was involved in this either by ordering the book to be printed, or by payingeng for it, but most probably both.. in any case, that Patriarch Sylvester obstinately followed his dream of distributing printed Arabic service books in Ottoman Syria." From the library of Frederick North, Earl of Guilford, with his engraved armorial bookplate (1835, probably no. 1896). Worm gallery affecting the bottom of the engraving and the top of the first leaves. Binding a little damaged.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue