A10795

Alcoran latinusVolume III

Editiones Theodori Bibliandri (1543 & 1550)

ed. Anthony John Lappin

Copyright © MMXIARACNE editrice S.r.l.

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I edizione: dicembre 2011

يم لبيبكرإلىviro generoso

non armis sed verbis, non vi sedratione, non odio sed amore.

Petrus Venerabilis,Liber contra sectam Saracenorum

C O N T E N T S

Introduction xiThe edition of 1543 xiThe edition of 1550 xviThe text of the Alcoran xviiThe present edition xix

Alcoran Latinus: editio Bibliandri

Praefatio traductoris 1

Alcoran 7Azoara I 11Azoara II 13Azoara II (bis) 25Azoara III 32Azoara IV 38Azoara V 44Azoara VI 52Azoara VII 60Azoara VIII 63Azoara IX 66Azoara X 73Azoara XI 79Azoara XII 82Azoara XIII 93Azoara XIV 97Azoara XV 100Azoara XVI 108Azoara XVII 143Azoara XVIII 130Azoara XIX 136Azoara XX 149Azoara XXI 158

A L C O R A N B I B L I A N D R Iviii

Azoara XXII 167Azoara XXIII 176Azoara XXIV 180Azoara XXV 185Azoara XXVI 189Azoara XXVII 198Azoara XXVIII 207

Medium Alcorani 216Azoara XXIX 216Azoara XXX 222Azoara XXXI 230Azoara XXXII 237Azoara XXXIII 243Azoara XXXIV 249Azoara XXXV 255Azoara XXXVI 259Azoara XXXVII 266Azoara XXXVIII 272Azoara XXXIX 279Azoara XL 284Azoara XLI 287Azoara XLII 291Azoara XLIII 293Azoara XLIV 300Azoara XLV 305Azoara XLVI 308Azoara XLVII 312Azoara XLVIII 317Azoara XLIX 322Azoara L 328Azoara LI 333Azoara LII 337Azoara LIII 341Azoara LIV 346Azoara LV 348Azoara LVI 350

C O N T E N T S ix

Azoara LVII 354Azoara LVIII 357Azoara LIX 360Azoara LX 362Azoara LXI 364Azoara LXII 366Azoara LXIII 368Azoara LXIV 370Azoara LXV 373Azoara LXVI 375Azoara LXVII 377Azoara LXVIII 380Azoara LXIX 383Azoara LXX 385Azoara LXXI 387Azoara LXXII 389Azoara LXXIII 390Azoara LXXIV 391Azoara LXXV 393Azoara LXXVI 394Azoara LXXVII 396Azoara LXXVIII 398Azoara LXXIX 399Azoara LXXX 401Azoara LXXXI 402Azoara LXXXII 404Azoara LXXXIII 405Azoara LXXXIV 406Azoara LXXXV 408Azoara LXXXVI 409Azoara LXXXVII 411Azoara LXXXVIII 412Azoara LXXXIX 413Azoara XC 414Azoara XCI 415Azoara XCII 416

A L C O R A N B I B L I A N D R Ix

Azoara XCIII 416Azoara XCIV 417Azoara XCV 418Azoara XCVI 419Azoara XCVII 419Azoara XCVIII 420Azoara XCIX 421Azoara C 422Azoara CI 422Azoara CII 423Azoara CIII 423Azoara CIV 424Azoara CV 424Azoara CVI 424Azoara CVII 425Azoara CVIII 425Azoara CIX 426Azoara CX 426Azoara CXI 427Azoara CXII 427Azoara CXIII 427Azoara CXIV 428Azoara CXV 428Azoara CXVI 428Azoara CXVII 429Azoara CXVIII 429Azoara CXIX 429Azoara CXX 429Azoara CXXI 430Azoara CXXII 430Azoara CXXIII 430Azoara CXIV 431

Explicit 431

I N T R O D U C T I O NTheodor Bibliander (1505–64) included the translation of the Qur’ānhere presented in his compilations of anti-Islamic material published byJohannes Oporinus in 1543 and 1550 respectively. In these twosixteenth-century printings, the Alcoran nestles amongst other worksfrom Peter the Venerable’s collection, together with a weighty refutationof Islam by Bibliander himself, joined, in two further volumes, byrefutations of Islam and depictions of the Turks by various authors.The Edition of 1543By the end of July 1542, the first volume had come off Oporinus’s press,without the two planned quires of introductory matter. Its two hundredand forty pages contained much of the collection of translated Islamictexts assembled by Peter the Venerable, as Bibliander had found it in thefirst manuscript he had consulted.1 The apparatus of marginalia found inthe base manuscript had been consigned to an appendix (‘Adnotationeseruditi cuiusdam’: I, 224–230) and the place of the original marginaliawas taken by Bibliander’s own copious annotations.2 Added to this wenta further appendix, composed of variae lectiones and textual annotationsborn of collation with another two manuscripts and occasional compari-son with an Arabic Qur’ān.3

Publishing a translation of the Qur’ān was politically explosive in Ba-sel, riven as it was by academic and ideological disputes. Henrich Petrihad attempted to publish a Latin translation in 1536, but his editorialproject was thwarted after learned opinion had been sought by the citycouncil. Oporinus, then, a mere six years later, must have been aware hewas treading on thin ice. Just how thin was shown when the city council,having been informed of the project, invoked rarely enforced censorship

1 These are: Peter’s letter to Bernard of Clairvaux (I, 1–2), the former’s Summaagainst Islam (I, 2–6); and, following the translation of the Qur’ān, the DoctrinaMachumet (I, 189–200), the De generatione Machumet (I, 201–12) and the ChronicaSaracenorum (I, 213–23).

2 A description of the contents of and motives for these marginal annotations is pro-vided by Thomas E. Burman, Reading the Qur’ān in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), pp. 111–13.

3 The volume at this point, then, was composed of twenty ternions, a–u (omitting‘j’). Preliminary matter, to be printed over the twenty-four pages of ternions α andβ, was already planned, since these are indicated on the ‘Series chartarum’ on thefinal folio.

A L C O R A N B I B L I A N D R Ixii

laws, initially prohibiting distribution. When, however, Oporinus conti-nued with the printing of the second volume, they ordered the copies tobe seized and the printer himself to be imprisoned.4

A crescendo of support was organized, issuing from prominent figuresof the Reformation, beginning with Oporinus’s clerical supporters in Bi-bliander’s Zurich, including a figure well-known in Basel, Konrad Pelli-kan; taking in the Strasburg theologians, led by Martin Bucer, CasparHedio and Johannes Sturm; and ending with the definitive involvementof Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, who had, in any case, encou-raged Oporinus from the very beginning.5 When permission for printingwas eventually forthcoming from the city fathers at the beginning of De-cember 1442, the council’s permission was guarded by a series of stipula-tions: a recognized academic figure must take responsibility for publica-tion; there was to be no means of connecting the book to Basel, eitherthrough the naming of the place of printing or of the printer, or throughoffering it for sale in the city.6 The printer’s privilege from the imperialcourt in Frankfurt (to which Oporinus had appealed when imprisoned atthe end of August) was received in January of 1443, but the preliminarymatter was not printed until Bibliander’s short foreword had been recei-ved; this is dated Geneva, 20 January 1543,7 and was placed on the versoof the first folio, occupying the space underneath the index of works inthe volume.8 Bibliander also contributed a long Apologia, justifying theprinting of a translation of the Qur’ān, and this occupies fols α3v–β6r.

4 See Harry Clark, ‘The Publication of the Koran in Latin: a Reformation Dilemma’,The Sixteenth-Century Journal, 15 (1984), 3–12, at pp. 8–9. The last page of vol. Iin Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, misc. 1936.1, is damaged by humidity – and thismost likely occurred when it was in the care of the Basel city council.

5 Clark, ‘The Publication’, pp. 9–11. They had even provided him with a manuscriptof Peter the Venerable’s collection, forwarded to Bibliander for collation: Victor Se-gesvary, L’Islam et la Réforme: étude sur les attitudes des reformateurs zurichois enversl’Islam (1510–1550), 3rd edn (The Hague: Mikes, 2005), p. 102.

6 Segesvary, L’Islam, p. 98. The latter stipulation was evidently not to prevent thegood burghers of Basel coming into contact with the book, but to prevent Oporinusfrom including its title in his publication catalogues, thereby identifying the city inquestion. Judging from library catalogue entries from earlier times, they were suc-cessful, and Basel was often not identified as the place of publication.

7 I, fol. α1v: ‘Christiano lectori Theodorus Bibliander S. [...] Vale, amice lector. ExTiguro, xx. die Ianuarii. Anno salutis nostrae reparatae MDLXIII.’

8 Entitled: Machumetis Saracenorum principis, eiusque successorum vitae, ac doctrina, ip-seque Alcoran ...

I N T R O D U C T I O N xiii

The frontispiece (as had been requested by the city council) namesBibliander as the editor (‘opera et studio THEODORI BIBLIANDI, EcclesiaeTigurinae ministri’), and continues with a justification for publishingthis collection of Islamic material which directly echoes Bibliander’sforeword.9 The frontispiece and preliminary matter of this early 1543printing was typeset twice, once to advertise the short Praemonitio whichprecedes Bibliander’s Apologia as having been authored by Luther, onceas authored by Melanchthon. Printing of both states was completed bymid-February, since some short time after 15 February Oporinus recei-ved a Praefatio sent on by Luther, and which he printed separately. Thebifolium was inserted into some few volumes, both those attributing thePraemonitio to Luther and those ascribing it to Melanchthon.10

Complications in printing the work during this year did not cease,however. A new frontispiece was used, with a new title;11 and, again, twovariants exist, distinguished by their attribution of the Praemonitio toeither Luther (very rarely) or Melanchthon. Just under a quarter of extantcopies from 1543 belong to these latter two states of printing.12 Asidefrom the difference in title, they are distinguished by containing neitherLuther’s Praefatio nor Bibliander’s foreword, but by recording theprinter’s privilege as being for seven years (as volumes II and III), ratherthan the five of the other four states of vol. I. Although the secondvolume of Confutationes legis Machumeticae ... did not undergo any

9 Title-page: ‘Quae quidem in lucem edidit ad gloriam Domini IESVCHRISTI, et mul-tiplicem Ecclesiae utilitatem, aduersus Satanam principem tenebrarum, eiusquenuncium Antichristum: quem oportet manifestari, et confici CHRISTI Se-ruatoris nostri.’ Bibliander’s foreword: ‘Nimirum ut satanae et antichristi astus at-que fraudes detectae melius caueri possint, animique Christianorum confirmetur infide Catholica [...] homines Christo consecrati, certatim incumbant ad oppugnan-dum antichristum, homines CHRISTO consecrati [...]. Denique ut summa ope deco-retur nomen IESVCHRISTI Domini dei et seruatoris nostri, [...] qui percutiet terramuirga oris sui, et spiritu labiorum suorum interficiet impium.’

10 This preface, entitled ‘MARTINI LVTHERI DOCTORIS Theologiae et et Ecclesiastis ec-clesiae Vuittenbergensis, in ALCORANVM Praefatio’, was sent to Oporinus by JacobMilichius on 15 February 1543 (Sesgavary, L’Islam, p. 101), and is inserted on fo-lios γ[1]r – γ2r (γ2v is blank). Had it been received before printing, it could havebeen typeset within the confines of the first two ternions; the Praemonitio takes uponly ten lines of fol. α3r, and Bibliander’s Apologia leaves a third of fol. β6r and allof fol. β6v blank.

11 Entitled: Machumetis Sarracenorum principis vita ac doctrina omnis, quae et Ismaheli-tarum lex, et Alcoranum dicitur ...

12 Space precludes a census of extant copies; see vol. II, §I.i.

A L C O R A N B I B L I A N D R Ixiv

changes,13 the third volume, Historiae de Saracenorum siue Turcarumorigine, moribus, nequitia, religione, rebus gestis ...,14 offers two states, andagain these differ with regard to the volume’s initial prologue, written byeither Luther or Melanchthon.15

These three volumes were, in roughly fifty-percent of cases, accompa-nied by another work which came that year from Oporinus’s press, andwhich, could be identified by both the printer’s device (the Greek poet,Arion, astride a dolphin) and the place of publication (‘Basileae’), toge-13 Vol. II contains, by means of introduction, short excerpts from Juan Luis Vives, ‘De

Mahomete, et Alchorano ipsius ...’ (II, *1–*2; taken from his De veritate fidei Chris-tianae), Raffaello Maffei, called Volterranus, ‘De Mahomete, eiusque legibus, et Sa-racenorum rebus’ (II, *2–*3, from his Commentarium urbanorum), Savonarola,‘Mahumetanorum sectam omni ratione carere’ (II, *3–[*6], from his Triumphis cru-cis, de veritate fidei). (Vives’s work would be printed by Oporinus that year and thefollowing; Volteranus’s opus in Basel, 1530; Savonarola’s had numerous editions:Venice, 1505, 1517; Paris, 1524; Antwerp, 1533; Basel, 1530.) The numerationbegins again with an excerpt from al-Kindi’s letter (II, 1–20: ‘De haeresi Heraclii etprincipatu ac lege Machumeti. Disputatio Christiani eruditissimi’); Nicholas of Cu-sa’s Cribratio Alkorani (II, 21–82); and, in both Latin and Greek, Ricoldo de Mon-tecroce’s Confutatio Alkorani (II, 83–165). The volume concludes with a Saracen’sconfession of Christian faith ‘incerto autore’ (II, 166–78).

14 George of Hungary’s description of Turkish culture (‘Tractatus de moribus, condi-tionibus, et nequitia Turcorum’), which was preceded by an introduction by eitherLuther – ‘Martinus Lutherus lectore pio S.’ (which had originally accompanied thework) – or Melanchthon – ‘Illustri principi ac domino Ioanni Ernesto Duci Saxo-niae ...’ – (III, 1–6; 7–60); Pope Pius II’s 1461 letter inviting Mehmetº II to beco-me a Christian (III, 60–100); a further work on the Turks, (III, 100–106: ‘Ordina-tio politiae Turcarum domi et foris’), Paulo Jovio’s history of the Turks (III, 107–35: ‘Turcicarum rerum commentarius’ – whence Melanchthon’s prologue used herecame), followed by his analysis of Turkish military strength, ‘Ordo ac disciplinaTurcicae militiae’ (III, 135–40); Vives, ‘De conditione vitae Christianorum’ (III,140–48), followed Felice Petancio, ‘Quibus itinerarii Turcis sint aggredendi’ (III,148–53) and closing with Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto’s homily, ‘De regno Hungariaeab hostibus Turcis opresso et capto’ (III, 154–63).

15 See, for a preliminary study of the states of the 1543 printing, Christian Moser,Theodor Bibliander (1505–1564). Annotierte Biliographie der gedruckten Werke (Zu-rich: TVZ, 2009), pp. 9–16, 111–154. A blow-by-blow account of the process to-wards publication can be found in Christine Christ-von Wedel, Theodor Bibliander(1505-1564): ein Thurgauer im gelehrten Zürich der Reformationszeit (Zurich: NeueZürcher Zeitung, 2005), pp. 105–61; Katya Vehlow, ‘The Swiss reformers Zwingli,Bullinger and Bibliander and their attitude to Islam (1520–1560)’, Islam and Chris-tian-Muslim Relations, 6 (1995), 229–254; and Harmut Bobzin’s series of publica-tions which led to his Der Koran im Zeitalter der Reformation: Studien zur Frühges-chichte der Arabistik und Islamkunde in Europa (Beirut: Franz Steiner, 1995).

I N T R O D U C T I O N xv

ther with the date (March 1543): a Latin translation John Cantacuze-nus’s polemic against Islam, followed by an edition of that Byzantineemperor’s Greek text. The Contra Mahometicam legem did circulate out-side the company of the Machumetis, but only a third of the extant copiesare found thus singly.16

The presence of Contra Mahometicam legem with the Machumetis wasby no means fortuitous. Oporinus had originally sent the Greek manus-cript to Bibliander, presumably for inclusion in his section of Confutatio-nes; he had declined the extra work of edition and translation, but passedit on to an up-and-coming colleague in Zurich, Rudolf Walther, withwhom he had collaborated on a Latin translation of the bible, which alsoappeared in 1543.17 Walther completed his translation of Cantacuzenusby late December 1542, and it was printed in March 1543.18 Oporinusprepared the edition of the Greek designed to follow the Latin transla-tion, although it was printed on a wholly separate series of quires.19

16 Ioannis Cantacuzeni Constantinopolitani regis Contra Mahometicam fidem Christiana& orthodoxa assertio, graece conscripta ante annos fere ducentos, nunc uero Latinitatedonata, Rodolpho Gualthero Tigurino interprete (Basel: Iohannes Oporinus, 1543); Alist of exemplars may be found in vol. II, § I.iii. Contra Mahometicam legem was notthe exclusive partner of the 1543 Machumetis; a particularly interesting confectedvolume is Vatican City, BAV, Stamp.Barb.G.XI.85, which, besides Cantacuzenus’swork, contains another book printed by Oporinus in the same year, Juan Luis Vi-ves, De veritate fidei christianae libri quinque (Basel: Iohannes Oporinus, 1453), aswell as two earlier German works from a Strasbourg printer: Alchoran, das ist desMahometischen Gesatzbuchs und Türckischen Aberglaubens ynnhalt und ablenung(Strasbourg: Hans Schotten, 1540), and Türckischer Keyser Ankunfft, Kryeg vnndHandlung, gegen vnd wider die Christen (Strasbourg: Hans Schotten, 1540). Furtherexamples could be cited, for a limited number of works: see vol. II, § I.iii.c.

17 Biblia sacrosancta testamenti veteris et novi e sacra Hebraeorum lingua Graecorumquefontibus, consultis simul orthodoxis interpretibus, religiosissime translata in sermonemLatinum (Zurich: Christoph Froschauer, 1543), originating with Leo Jud, and com-pleted in collaboration with Konrad Pellikan and Peter Kolin.

18 Walther (fol. A[6]r) dated his introduction ‘Tiguri, X. Calend. Ianuarij. Anno àChristo nato M.D.XLII’, that is 23 December, 1542. Oporinus, in his Epistola tothe edition of Cantacuzenus’s Greek (fol. *2v–*3r) provides a description of his rolein sending the manuscript to Bibliander and its transmission to Walther. The detailsof printing are found at fol. [l 4]r, ‘Basileae, ex officina Ioannis Oporini, anno salu-tis M.D. XLIII. Mense Martio.’

19 The Greek title is (fol. α[1]r): Τοῦ εὐσεβεστάτο υ καὶ φιλοχρίστου βασιλέως |ΙΟΑΝΝΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΝΤΑΚΟΥΖΕΝΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΔΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΜΟΝΑΧΙ- | κοῦ σχήματοςμετονομασθέντος ΙΩΑΣΑΦ ΜΟΝΑΧΟΥ, | κατὰ τῆς τῶν σαρακηνῶν αἱρέσεως |Απολογίαι Δ. | ΤΟΥ ΑΥΤΟΥ ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΥ ΜΩΑΜΕΘ ΛΟΓΟΙ Δ (By the most blessedlover of Christ, Emperor John Kantakouzenos, who, after his monastic profession

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The Edition of 1550Seven years later, after the printer’s privilege had expired, the three vo-lumes of the Machumetis left Oporinus’s press again, each one updated,but on a notably inferior quality of paper and in a less finely cut font.The Confutationes now included Cantucazenus’s work, although boththis and Ricoldo de Monte Croce’s Confutatio were shorn of their ac-companying Greek text;20 the third volume widened to take in excerptsfrom works by two authors: Bartolomej Durdević,21 and Christophe Ri-cher,22 both sensible choices regarding contemporaneity and popularity.23

took the name of Iosaph the monk, On the Heresy of the Saracens, four discourses.By the same author, four orations against Mohammed); there follows Oporinus’s in-troductory letter to Gilbert Cousin (fols *2r–*[4]r); a historical summary of Canta-cuzenus’s life, excerpted from the second volume of Iohannes Baptista Egnatius’s DeCaesaribus libri tres (first published in Venice by Manutius, 1514, further editionsFlorence (1519), Paris (1544) and Lleida (1546); fols. [*4]v, [*5]r–v, α[1]r); fol.α[1]v contains the Argumentum of the work, and α2r its beginning; page numbera-tion begins with p. 4, fol. α2v. The work closes at ι8v (p. [109]) with ΕΤΥΠΩΘΗ ΕΝΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΑΙ ΠΑΡΑ | ΜΕΝ ΤΩΙ ΝΙΚΟΛΑΩΙ ΒΡΥΛΙΓΓΕΡΩΙ ΕΠΙΜΕΛΕΙΑΙ | δὲ καὶἀναλώμασι Ιωάννου τοῦ ὀπωρινοῦ, χιλιοστῷ πεντακοσιοστῷ | τεσσαρακοστῷτρίτῳ ἀπὸ τῆς θεογονίας ἐνιαυτῷ, | μουνυχιῶνος δευτέρᾳ ἱσταμένου (printed inBasel care of Nicholas Bryligger [i.e., Brylinger] and with the financial assistance ofJohannes Oporinus, in 1543, set for the second time in Munich).

20 ‘Richardi ex ordine Fratrum, qui apud Latinos Praedicatores appellantur, Confuta-tio legis latae Saracenis ...’ (II, coll. 121–92); ‘Ioannis Cantacuzeni Constan-tinopolitani Regis, Contra sectam Mahometicam ...’ (II, fol. I[1]r – col. 358).

21 Bartholomaeus Georgievits, ‘Prognoma sive praesagium Mehemetanorum ...’ (III,164–71) and ‘Epistola exhortatoria contra infideles, ad illustrissimum PrincipemMaximilianum Arciducem Austriae’ (III, 171–73), both taken from his Prognomasive praesagium Mehemetanorum, primum de Christianorum calamitatibus, deinde desuae gentis interitu, ex Persica [!] lingua in Latinum sermonem conversum (2 edns,Antwerp: Copenius, [c. 1544–45]); Vienna: Singriener, 1547); ‘De afflictione, tamcapitiuorum quam etiam sub Turcae tributo ...’ (III, 174–80), excerpted from Deafflictione tam captiuorum quam etiam sub Turcae tributo viuentium Christianorum ...additis nonnullis vocabulis, Dominica oratione, Angelica salutatione, symbolo Apostolo-rum linguae Sclauonicae, cum interpretatione Latina, libellus (Antwerp: Copenius,1544); and finally, ‘De Turcarum ritu, deque ceremoniis, liber secundus’ (III, 181–191), an extract from De Turcarum ritu et caeremoniis (Antwerp: G. Bontium, 1544;Paris: C. Langelié, 1545).

22 ‘Christopheri Richerii Galli, Thorignei Senonis, Cubiculari Regii, in suum de origi-ne Turcarum et Othomani successorumque eius imperio commentarium Praefatio,ad Franciscum Gallorum regem Christianissimum’ (III, 192–213), ‘De moribus at-que institutis Turcarum, liber II’ (III, 213–220), ‘De Mahummedes pseudoprop-heta’ (III, 221–23), ‘De Tamerlanis Parthi rebus gestis’ (III, 223–27), ‘De expugna-

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The first volume gained a newly designed frontispiece,24 transferredBibliander’s foreword to the end of the Praemonitio (duly attributed toMelanchthon), shortened the length of the section containing the origi-nal marginalia by setting them in italic, dispensed with both Luther’sPraefatio and the final section of variae lectiones, and – crucially – offereda different text for the Alcoran. Nevertheless, the mise-en-page of the1543 version was followed, no doubt to ease the type-setting of Biblian-der’s own marginal annotations to the text, which were hardly changed.25

The Text of the AlcoranIn the first volume of his 1543 edition, Bibliander offered his workingmethod in publishing the Alcoran and its attendent texts. At the head ofthe long appendix detailing variant readings, suggested emendations, andcomparisons with the Arabic text (rendered, faute de mieux, in He-brew),26 Bibliander set out his editorial working method. He had copied

ta à Mahummede Constantinopoli’ (III, 227–32), ‘De Castellinovi Dalmatiae obsi-dione, expugnatione, ac direptione’ (III, 232–35), which represents De Rebus Turca-rum libri quinque... Christophoro Richerio... authore. De origine Turcarum... De mori-bus et institutis illius gentis. De Tammerlanis Parthi rebus gestis. De expugnata a Mao-methe Constantinopoli. De Castellinovi Dalmatiae oppidi recenti direptione (Paris: Ro-bert Estienne, 1540)].

23 Durdević’s De Turcarum ritu and the Prognoma were also brought together in DeTurcarum moribus epitome (Lyon: J. Tornaesium, 1553), with numerous subsequenteditions (Lyon: J. Tornaesium, 1555, 1567, 1598; Paris: H. de Marnef et G. Cave-llat, 1566 and 1568; Geneva: J. de Tournes, 1629). Richer’s work also circulated inFrench translation, carried out by the author himself (Paris: Robert Estienne, 1540,1542), and in excerpts in an Italian translation: Francesco Sansovino, Dell’historiauniversale dell’origine et imperio de’Turchi, 3 vols (Venice, 1560, and at least fourfurther editions, 1568–1654), III. Fragments were also extracted in the seventeenthcentury: Nicholas Reusner, Rerum memorabilium in Pannonia (Frankfurt: C. Mar-ne, 1603); Simon Schardius, Schardius redivivus, sive rerum Germanicarum scriptoresvarii, 4 vols (Giessen: Seiler, 1673), II.

24 Entitled: Machumetis Saracenorum principis, eiusque successorum vitae, doctrina, ac ip-se Alcoran ...

25 Extant copies may be seen in vol. II, § I.iii.26 Oporinus undoubtedly paid Nikolaus Brylinger for the printing of his Greek edi-

tion of Cantacuzenus, Contra Mahometicam sectam (see above, n. 19), because thelatter possessed a Greek font; in such circumstances, it would be unthinkable thatOporinus should have had an Arabic font. Certainly by this point Brylinger hadprinted several Greek works: Melanchthon, Grammatica graeca (1538); Demost-henes, Orationes Olynthiacae tres, cum aliquot Philippicis. In usum puerorum (1538);Theodore of Gaza, Introductiones grammaticae (1538, 1540); V. Opsopaeus, InGraecorum epigrammatum libros quatuor annotationes (1540).

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faithfully the first manuscript of the text that came his way, and it wasthis which was set for printing.27 However, as a proof of his sincerity anddetermination (‘Tanta religione ac fide usi sumus’) he carried out a colla-tion between this base text and two further manuscripts which had beensent to him shortly after he had begun his transcription, occasionally tur-ning when necessary to an Arabic Qur’ān. He thereby realised that theoriginal manuscript was not of the best: indeed, ‘deprauatissimum tamenerat’.28 Possibly because the text was already at least partially set, he chosenot to emend the text, but to consign variants, completed by some sug-gested emendations ope ingenii, to a section at the end of the volume onunnumbered pages.29 This section covered all of the works reproducedfrom the manuscript which formed the basis of the first volume, notsimply the Alcoran.

The manuscripts he used were channelled to him by, in the main,Oporinus. It was the latter who sent the Arabic manuscript of the Qur’ānfrom the university of Basle, and who forwarded him the Latin manus-cript which came from Luther and Melanchthon. Bibliander’s base textwas probably connected to the translation of the Qur’ān that HeinrichPetri had attempted to publish in Basel during the previous decade.30

The markedly different text provided for the Alcoran in the 1550 Ma-chumetis is not due to any editorial revision, however; it came aboutthanks to Bibliander’s use of a further manuscript as a base text, which isrevealed (in the explicit that Bibliander preserves in his edition) to havebeen in the hand of Clemens Polonus, copying in Constantinople in Ja-nuary 1437 on the orders of John of Ragusa.

Bibliander’s fidelity to a base manuscript is by no means to be ascri-bed to a lack of philological sensibility. That he was clearly capable ofproducing emendations is shown by his suggestions consigned amongst27 The section is entitled, ‘Annotationes uariae lectionis diuersorum quatuor exempla-

rium, quibus in describendo conferendoque sumus usi’ (I, 230): ‘exemplari primoquod imitari per omnia statueramus’.

28 I, 230: ‘ad duo alia que paulopost amicorum aliquot opera nacti sumus, diligentercollato, et consulto etiam ubi necesse uidebatur Arabico optime atque emendatissi-me scripto’.

29 The collation was probably carried out on the page-proofs, since the variants andnotes in the appendix are accompanied by both page- and line-number rather than areference to the relevant azoara, whereas the marginal annotations taken from themanuscript are keyed only to azoara and relevant words, rather than the more wor-kable sequence of page : line-number : relevant words.

30 Heinrich Petri worked with Oporinus at a later date, on, for example, LambertusHortensius, Enarrationes in sex priores libros Aeneidos Vergilianae (Basel, 1559).

I N T R O D U C T I O N xix

the Variae lectionis. And that he was able to decide between better andworse witnesses to a text is demonstrated by his adoption of Clemens Po-lonus’s copy for the 1550 edition. His precise, and disciplined, ecdoticapproach finds its echo in Oporinus’s views regarding textual criticism.He set these out in his Epistola nuncupatoria to the Greek edition of Can-tacuzenus’s Contra Mahometicam legem, which, as we have seen, was in-timately connected to the production of the Alcoran. In this introduc-tion, he opposed the free-wheeling emendation practised by many of hispeers, since this process produced works which the authors themselveswould not recognize as their own: he proposed to change not an iota ofhis original, since it was all too easy to turn the text into a composite fan-tasy.31 Fidelity to a manuscript was thus by no means a disadvantage, butguaranteed a rigorous link between the printed text and its manuscripttradition. Only where the manuscript he was using was evidently faultythrough textual loss, did he feel it necessary to intervene, and then basedhis emendation upon the Latin translation.32 Bibliander was working wi-thin a tradition of textual criticism which prized the individual witness tothe transmission of temporally distant texts, rather than the suppositionsof the scholar.The present editionIn preparing my own edition of Bibliander’s two version of the Alcoran, Ihave borne in mind his fidelity to the texts he reproduced. Accepting hismatured view of the primacy of the Clemens Polonus copy, I have adop-ted mainly the readings of the 1550 edition for the text – but those of1543 for the marginal annotations –, correcting from the other witnessonly where typographical considerations lead to the suspicion that some-thing (often punctuation) has been omitted or mistaken. Such a process,of course, produces a hybrid, or a chymaera: an edition that approx-imates to the text that Bibliander would have produced had Oporinus’s

31 Oporinus, Epistola nuncupatoria, fol. *3v: ‘cum unicum tantum exemplar, quoddescriptioni subseruiret, essemus nacti [...] maluisse ita prorsus per omnia quale idcunque erat exprimere, quam uel iota usquam addere, aut immutare quicquam. [...]Qua quidem religione in edendis ueterum monimentis, utinam et alii quidam (quosnouimus) uti, quam temere quod somniantibus saepe uisum fuerit, cum quid parumadeo statim est obuium, substituere mallent, minus equidem corrupta pleraque inpublicum prodirent, quae ita a sciolis istis plerunque deprauantur, ut ipsi illorumautores, si eis redire ad superos liceret, haud raro seipsos etiam in relictis a se posteri-tati lucubrationibus suis nosse uix possent.’

32 Oporinus, Epistola, fol. *3v: ‘lacunae alicubi quaedam apparebant, sed pauciorestamen illae, et quarum defectus uel ex latina uersione abunde uideretur sarciri’.

A L C O R A N B I B L I A N D R Ixx

printing press not stood in the way whilst it simultaneously made the en-terprise possible.

Given the significance of the 1543 edition in representing a manu-script’s readings, and its equal diffusion when compared with the 1550edition, it is important to maintain its variants against those of its impro-ved successor. It was just as much through the former as the latter thatEarly Modern readers accessed the Latin Qur’ān. In the apparatus criti-cus, the 1543 text is referred to as ʙ₁ and the 1550, as ʙ₂. Where both a-gree, ʙ is used. Furthermore, the riches of Bibliander’s collation found inhis section of variae lectiones have also been included in the apparatus cri-ticus, as have purely text critical notes found in his marginalia. The variedtypes of annotation have been separated by different sigla: thus textualvariants noted by Bibliander are identifed by ʙͮ, annotations (emen-dations, comparisons with the Arabic) by ʙᷠ; and marginal annotationspurtaining to textual matters in the 1543 Alcoran are indicated by ʙͫ₁,whilst those from the 1550 edition are signified by ʙͫ₂. Variants are keyedto lines in the apparatus; where more than one series of variant readingsoccur on a line, they are separated by the following: ّ

The very frequent diacritics to be found in the texts have been ig-nored. Abbreviations have been silently expanded throughout, in bothtext and apparatus, and no systematic record of them is maintained, apartfrom variation between ę and æ (which may reproduce in part the use ofthe relevant manuscripts). Variations such as these, and those of pun-ctuation and of word separation, have been distinguished from others ofmore import by the use of a lighter shade of ink in the apparatus. Bi-bliander’s system of punctuation has been preserved, apart from the useof full stop followed by a miniscule; in these cases, a semi-colon has us-ually been used, but record of the original puncation is preserved in theapparatus.

Where it has appeared desirable to transcribe the relevant text, this hasbeen done by enclosing the transcription in guillemets (« ... ») followingthe relevant siglum. The end of a line is marked by a straight vertical line,| , and that of a page by |[p. n]. Dropped capitals used by the printer havebeen reproduced by placing the capital in bold; the number of lines thatthese capitals take up is indicated by a superscript number enclosed byguillemets before the letter in question, unless it is the most common si-ze, which is two lines, and therefore no number is present; letters en-closed by a square represent woodcuts, and again the size (in number oflines) is recorded by a superscript number enclosed by guillements beforethe letter in question.