DIWAN GERMANUS FARHAT (POEMS OF FARHAT) Ottoman Levant, Mount Lebanon...
DIWAN GERMANUS FARHAT (POEMS OF FARHAT)
BY BISHOP GERMANUS FARHAT (JIBRA'IL IBN FARHAT MATAR, D. 1732)
Ottoman Levant, Mount Lebanon or Aleppo, c. 1750
Arabic manuscript on laid paper, composed of 122 leaves, the text arranged in two columns per page, 21 lines of neat, small naskh script written in black ink, with red rubrics for section headers, poem titles, meters (bahr), dates, and line counts, the complete Diwan is arranged alphabetically by rhyme scheme (qafiyah), beginning with Qafiyat Al-Alif (folio 2v) and concluding with Qafiyat al-Ya', rubrics frequently attribute poems to Jibra'il Al-Rahib Al-Lubnani (Gabriel the Lebanese Monk) and specify dates of composition (1695 AD on folio 2v; 1720 AD on folio 85r), this finely written manuscript a complete contemporary mid-18th-century copy of the Diwan of Bishop Germanus Farhat (born Jibra'il ibn Farhat Matar, 1670–1732), Maronite Bishop of Aleppo, polymath, and one of the founding fathers of the Arab literary renaissance (Al-Nahda).
20.5 x 14.7 cm
Born in Aleppo to a family originally from Hasroun in Mount Lebanon, Farhat was ordained as a monk in 1693, taking the religious name Germanus. Proficient in Arabic, Syriac, Latin, and Italian, he played a crucial role in reviving classical Arabic language, grammar, and rhetoric within the Levantine Christian tradition.
The poems in this Diwan span his career—from early works composed under his monastic name ‘Jibra'il’ in Aleppo during the 1690s to mature theological, laudatory, and philosophical odes composed in the 1720s. Complete manuscript copies of his collected poetry produced so close to his lifetime are rare, as many surviving monastic examples are incomplete or selectively compiled.
For a similar example:
The Cambridge University Library, Qq. 146.
Provenance:
From the property of a private collector.
For further reference on the subject: Starkey P., Farhat, Jarmanus lemma in Meisami J.S. and Starkey P., Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Routledge London and New York, 1998, p. 221.
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Time, Location
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DIWAN GERMANUS FARHAT (POEMS OF FARHAT)
BY BISHOP GERMANUS FARHAT (JIBRA'IL IBN FARHAT MATAR, D. 1732)
Ottoman Levant, Mount Lebanon or Aleppo, c. 1750
Arabic manuscript on laid paper, composed of 122 leaves, the text arranged in two columns per page, 21 lines of neat, small naskh script written in black ink, with red rubrics for section headers, poem titles, meters (bahr), dates, and line counts, the complete Diwan is arranged alphabetically by rhyme scheme (qafiyah), beginning with Qafiyat Al-Alif (folio 2v) and concluding with Qafiyat al-Ya', rubrics frequently attribute poems to Jibra'il Al-Rahib Al-Lubnani (Gabriel the Lebanese Monk) and specify dates of composition (1695 AD on folio 2v; 1720 AD on folio 85r), this finely written manuscript a complete contemporary mid-18th-century copy of the Diwan of Bishop Germanus Farhat (born Jibra'il ibn Farhat Matar, 1670–1732), Maronite Bishop of Aleppo, polymath, and one of the founding fathers of the Arab literary renaissance (Al-Nahda).
20.5 x 14.7 cm
Born in Aleppo to a family originally from Hasroun in Mount Lebanon, Farhat was ordained as a monk in 1693, taking the religious name Germanus. Proficient in Arabic, Syriac, Latin, and Italian, he played a crucial role in reviving classical Arabic language, grammar, and rhetoric within the Levantine Christian tradition.
The poems in this Diwan span his career—from early works composed under his monastic name ‘Jibra'il’ in Aleppo during the 1690s to mature theological, laudatory, and philosophical odes composed in the 1720s. Complete manuscript copies of his collected poetry produced so close to his lifetime are rare, as many surviving monastic examples are incomplete or selectively compiled.
For a similar example:
The Cambridge University Library, Qq. 146.
Provenance:
From the property of a private collector.
For further reference on the subject: Starkey P., Farhat, Jarmanus lemma in Meisami J.S. and Starkey P., Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Routledge London and New York, 1998, p. 221.
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
