St Paul’s Shipwreck on Malta: The Arabic version in the Malta Illustrata

Professor Martin R. Zammit read Arabic, Greek, and Latin at undergraduate level, and specialized in Arabic and Semitic studies at post-graduate and doctoral levels at the University of Malta. Prof. Zammit acted as assistant executive director of the Mediterranean Institute, and director of the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Malta. At present, he is the head of the Department of Oriental Studies at the Faculty of Arts of the same university. He is also responsible for the Arabic programme within this Department. Prof. Zammit has published his academic research in a number of local and international journals and books in the fields of Arabic dialectology, Semitic studies and Maltese. His publications include a study on the qur’ānic lexicon, a Syriac chrestomathy, and a translation into Arabic of a collection of Maltese short stories and a Maltese translation of the Qur’ān.

 

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Sponsored by the Alfred Mizzi Foundation. In his Malta Illustrata: Della Descrittione di Malta isola nel mare siciliano con le sue antichità, ed altre notitie (1647) Commendatore Fra Giovanni Francesco Abela reproduces the Latin version of the verses in chapters 27 and 28 of the “Acts of the Apostles” which narrate St Paul’s shipwreck on Malta. Abela also included an Arabic version, transcribed in Latin characters, of these verses which were sent to him by the Collegio de Propaganda Fide accompanied by a literal Latin translation prepared by Fr Domenico Magri, the author of Breve racconto del viaggio al Monte Libano (1654). This Arabic version is of particular interest because it is a translation which predates the publication, in 1651, of the Biblia Sacra Arabica by the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. The talk will highlight the motives behind Abela’s decision to include the Arabic version in the Malta Illustrata.

 

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