Ignazio Guidi

Ignazio Guidi (1844 – 18 April 1935) was an Italian orientalist and one of the most prominent scholars in the philology of Semitic and Eastern Christian literatures.

He became professor at the University of Rome, teaching from 1876 to 1919. He is known as a Hebraist and for many translations.

He learned semitic languages from Pius Zingerle and Father Vincenti, and taught himself Ge'ez.

He discovered the ''Khuzistan Chronicle'', and edited the ''Chronicle of Edessa''.

He also edited for the first time a letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham about the martyrs of Najran, the oldest evidence for this historical event.

He was the student of the Ethiopian scholar Däbtära Keflä-Giorgis, who played a "crucial role as teacher of the person who could be described as the father of Ethiopian studies in Italy, Ignazio Guidi." He devoted himself to Ethiopian studies from 1885, and his Syriac scholarship is also significant. He met notable Syriac Christian figures such as Syriac Catholic patriarch Ignatius Ephrem Rahmani and Maronite priest Gabriel Cardahi. Provided by Wikipedia