“I have always loved the Holy Tongue”
Read More
Found a better price? Request a price match
“I have always loved the Holy Tongue”
Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
Fusing high scholarship with high drama, Grafton and Weinberg uncover a secret and extraordinary aspect of legendary Renaissance scholar Isaac Casaubon’s already celebrated achievement.
This book is nothing short of a masterpiece, combining in an unprecedented way sound philological expertise with historical ingenuity and creativity. The rediscovery of Casaubon as a dedicated student of Jewish learning will revolutionize the history of Christian Hebraism. -- Peter Schafer, Princeton University I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue is a wonderful work of scholarship and a sheer delight to read. The book is significant beyond the authors' brilliant reconstruction of Isaac Casaubon's Hebraic passions. It provides a model on how to study Hebrew and Aramaic texts alongside Greek and Latin ones to the mutual benefit of both disciplines. It illustrates what exciting rewards exist for the industrious scholar willing to peruse hand-written journals and scribbled annotations on the pages of printed books. Both Grafton and Weinberg acknowledge their debts to their late teacher Arnaldo Momigliano, the great classical scholar. He especially would have appreciated their remarkable collaborative achievement. -- David B. Ruderman, University of Pennsylvania In the new story told by these two eminent authorities, Casaubon remains the great Hellenist known to Pattison, but he becomes much more. He is now a pioneering student of Hebrew texts and a Christian ascetic who turned Hellenic and Hebrew philology into Protestant piety...The book underlines the importance of late antiquity and early Christianity, which until recently, were not very visible in Anglophone scholarship: Grafton and Weinberg go far to reveal the roots of this exciting field. -- Brian Copenhaver, University of California, Los Angeles
Fusing high scholarship with high drama, Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg uncover a secret and extraordinary aspect of a legendary Renaissance scholar's already celebrated achievement. The French Protestant Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) is known to us through his pedantic namesake in George Eliot's Middlemarch. But in this book, the real Casaubon emerges as a genuine literary hero, an intrepid explorer in the world of books.
With a flair for storytelling reminiscent of Umberto Eco, Grafton and Weinberg follow Casaubon as he unearths the lost continent of Hebrew learning and adds this ancient lore to the well-known Renaissance revival of Latin and Greek.
The mystery begins with Mark Pattison's nineteenth-century biography of Casaubon. Here we encounter the Protestant Casaubon embroiled in intellectual quarrels with the Italian and Catholic orator Cesare Baronio. Setting out to understand the nature of this imbroglio, Grafton and Weinberg discover Casaubon's knowledge of Hebrew.
Close reading and sedulous inquiry were Casaubon's tools in recapturing the lost learning of the ancients—and these are the tools that serve Grafton and Weinberg as they pore through pre-1600 books in Hebrew, and through Casaubon's own manuscript notebooks. Their search takes them from Oxford to Cambridge, from Dublin to Cambridge, Massachusetts, as they reveal how the scholar discovered the learning of the Hebrews—and at what cost.
Series: Carl Newell Jackson Lectures
View allBook Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780674048409
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 03 January 2011
Country: United States
Imprint: The Belknap Press
Illustration: 43 halftones
Audience: Tertiary education
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 25.0mm
Width: 175.0mm
Height: 254.0mm
Weight: 975g
Pages: 392
About the Author
Anthony Grafton is the author of The Footnote, Defenders of the Text, Forgers and Critics, and Inky Fingers, among other books. The Henry Putnam University Professor of History and the Humanities at Princeton University, Emeritus, he writes regularly for the London Review of Books. Joanna Weinberg is Reader in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford.
Also by Anthony Grafton
View allAlso by Joanna Weinberg
View allMore from Religion & Spirituality
View allWhy buy from us?
Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!
Service & Delivery
Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 80,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.
Auckland Bookstore
We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.
Our Gifting Service
Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.
