In Rome itself, as a last attempt, another defender and later member of a Vatican committee appointed to make the transcriptions and translations, the Italian Franciscan friar Bartolomeo de Pettorano, was allowed to transcribe and translate the Lead Books.1 Bartolomeo de Pettorano, Latinized Bartholomeus a Pectorano, was born in Pettorano sul Gizio (Italy) around 1600. He had prepared himself as a priest for the Oriental missions in the School of Oriental languages of the Franciscan San Pietro in Montorio Monastery in Rome. In 1631 he departed for the Holy Land. After he returned to Italy he taught Arabic in Rome and in Naples. In 1645 he became a member of the editorial committee that prepared the revised Arabic Bible edition. In 1649 he was appointed Professor of Oriental languages at the Sapienza in Rome.
Bartolomeo de Pettorano became interested in the Lead Books through his contacts with Bartolomé de las Torres, who had brought the Lead Books to Rome in 1642. He continued his interest all his life and became a defender of the Lead Books.2 A manuscript discovered a few decades ago by the historian and anthropologist Julio Caro Baroja, now kept in the library of the Royal Academy of History in Madrid, describes him as the “apostolic advocate to the cause of the Lead Books.”3 It makes clear that Pettorano kept working on his translations of the Lead Books as their advocate and defender in the cause against the Lead Books in Rome until his death in 1688. Four Lead Books which were initially transcribed and translated into Latin by him are extant in British Library manuscript Harley MS 3507.4
Early in 1645, a Vatican committee entrusted with the task of transcribing and translating the books started its work.5 This committee consisted of three cardinals: Roma, Spada and Ginetti, and, as assessor of the Holy Office, Msgr. Francisco degli Albizzi, in addition to five scholars who acted as interpreters: the aforesaid Franciscan Bartolomeo de Pettorano (who had already translated twelve books by then), the Franciscan Antonio de l’Aquila, the Jesuits Giovanni Battista Giattini and Athanasius Kircher, Ludovico Marracci of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God, and Filippo Guadagnoli of the Clerics Regular Minor.
Antonio de l’Aquila (d. 1679) entered the Dominican Order in 1623. He worked as a missionary for some time in Syria (Aleppo) and on his return to Italy became a member of a preparatory committee for the revised Arabic edition of the Bible. He was the author of an Arabic grammar and taught Arabic in the Colleges of Montorio and St. Pancrazio.6
The Jesuit Giovanni Battista Giattini (1601–1672) was a native of Palermo. He was a theologian, philosopher, mathematician and orientalist.7
Ludovico Marracci (1612–1700) was an Italian Arabist who between 1656 and 1699 held the chair of Arabic at the Sapienza in Rome and is considered the most knowledgeable European specialist in the study of the Quran in early Modern Europe. He was involved in many projects including the publishing and printing of the Sacra Biblia Arabica (1671), the evaluation of the Lead Books (around 1666) and his Latin translation of the Quran (1698).8 He became influential at the Vatican, serving as Pope Innocent XI’s confessor between 1676 and 1689. Marracci was openly polemical towards Islam in his many works, as can be seen from his translation of the Quran and especially the Prodromus ad refutationem Alcorani (Introduction to the Refutation of the Quran) written around 1680, published for the first time as a separate work in 1691 and later, with the equally polemical Refutatio Alcorani (Refutation of the Quran), included in the Latin translation of the Quran published in 1698.
Athanasius Kircher was born in Geisa (Germany) on 2 May 1602 and died in Rome on 27 November 1680. In 1618 he became a member of the Jesuit order and was ordained priest in 1628. He studied in Fulda, where he had also studied Hebrew with a rabbi. He became a professor of ethics and mathematics at the University of Würzburg. He also taught Aramaic and Hebrew and developed an interest in hieroglyphs. After having taught in Avignon for some time he was appointed professor of mathematics, physics and Oriental studies at the Collegium Romanum, the Jesuit university in Rome. Kircher was a famous scholar, revered as a universal man (homo universalis) and as the last man “who knew everything.” He was also known for his esoteric ideas. The many studies on Kircher only rarely mention his involvement in the evaluation of the Lead Books.9
Filippo Guadagnoli was born in Magliano (Abruzzo). He became a member of the Clerics Regular Minor in 1612 and studied Oriental languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Persian, Arabic). He taught at the Sapienza. Among his publications is an apologetic work against an anti-Christian polemical treatise written by the Indian Muslim scholar Aḥmad Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿAbidīn. This polemic was a refutation of Jerónimo Xavier’s polemic against Islam, Mirror of Truth.10 Guadagnoli wrote an Arabic grammar and contributed to the aforesaid Arabic Bible project. He died in Rome in 1656, when the Lead Books evaluation process was still going on.11
On 12 March 1645 the evaluation committee started transcribing and translating the Lead Books.12 On the orders of the pope the procedure was the same as before in Granada (referred to, as we have seen, as the Septuagint model): each scholar had to produce his own independent transcription and translation. The members met three times a week. The transcription phase took from March 1645 until October 1646.13 In between, there was contact with the Marquis of Estepa and especially his servant Juan Bautista Centurión (Sergio had died) about a collation of the committee’s translation with the one made under the supervision of Estepa, who prepared an improved translation.14 A collation and control phase followed. This phase lasted from October 1646 until September 1647.15 The next year was occupied with the preparation of the six individual translations.
A notary of the Holy Office, Giovanni Lupi, was then commissioned to prepare a hexapla in six columns. Under the supervision of various cardinals, the translations were compared. This work took until 1652. Then, a collation between the complete Vatican translation of the Lead Books and the Parchment with that of the Marquis of Estepa was done in 1652.16 Corrections on both sides were made between 1652 and 1655. The death of Innocent X on 7 January 1655 created a new situation. On 28 April 1655, after a period of three years of sede vacante, Alexander VII became the next pope. Under his pontificate, the corrections to the Latin translation (which had been completed in the time of Innocent X) by Marracci and Pettorano were accepted by the others.17 But in the meantime the composition of the group had changed: Guadagnoli had died in 1656. The approved Latin translation was signed on 13 June by five translators.18
Once the work of this committee was finished, a group of cardinals decided to make a proposal to the pope to install a committee of learned persons to prepare a theological evaluation. The pope approved this decision, but according to Alonso rejected two persons on the list, Pettorano and a Jesuit whose name is unknown. The nine accepted members were Marracci, who acted as fiscal, Casatane (Cardinal Girolamo Casanatta) (1620–1700), De Laurea (Cardinal Lorenzo Brancati di Lauria) (1612–1693), Cardinal Giovanni Bona (1609–1674), Suares (bishop Joseph Marie de Suarès, 1593–1677), Ricci (Michelangelo Ricci (1619–1682), Alessandro Pollini, a man of letters), De Rubeis (Benedetto Rossi), and Allatius (the Greek Leon Allatios, in Italian: Leone Alacio, 1586–1669).
In the year 1666, all members of the committee of theologians gave their written votes in the form of smaller or larger assessments. Marracci presented a study of 128 folia as his votum, entitled Disquisitio laminarum Granatensium quinque partibus comprehensa. Marracci’s votum is by far the most thorough and extensive of those of the nine assessors of the evaluation committee.19 Marracci’s views were influenced by those of Dobelio, whose work he must have had in front of him, although he does not mention him by name, and by other scholars, such as Abraham Ecchellensis, the Lebanese Maronite scholar Ibrāhīm al-Hāqilānī (1605–1664), whom he mentions as one of those who had given him information, in particular about the Quran.20 Marracci applied Dobelio’s method to the whole collection of Lead Books and demonstrated that his views were valid for all of them. Marracci integrated the examples adduced and the Islamic sources quoted by Dobelio, adding to them a long list of additional examples from other books, focusing on doctrinal passages which Dobelio had not mentioned. Dobelio discussed his points in the order in which they occur in the Vita. Marracci’s, on the other hand, is an analytical study based on an examination of all the Lead Books.
In the first part, Marracci first studies the resemblance between the language and ideas of the Lead Books on the one hand and the Quran and some Islamic sources, such as Prophetical Traditions, on the other. Then, basing himself on the preceding section, he demonstrates that the Lead Books are replete with Islamic terms, sentences, “fables” and doctrinal “errors.”21 He then demonstrates, in the second part, that the Lead Books contain many elements that deviate from Catholic orthodox (Christian) doctrine in a way that often parallels Islamic error.22 Following up this same line of thought, he shows in the third section that the Lead Books often deviate from the holy (biblical) and ecclesiastical traditions and historical sources, while concurring with Islamic traditions.23 After presenting in section four various notes that do not fit under the subject headings of one the first three parts,24 Marracci concludes his Disquisitio with a masterly summary in chapter five, dealing with the artifices of the Lead Books and the purposes of their author.25 In this last section he argues that the origins of the prophecies of the Lead Books are to be found in the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571 and its repercussions for the “Mauri” in Spain.26 The Parchment does not play a large role in the deliberations but is not absent either. We find some transcripts, an approved Latin translation in the Vatican Archive (see P8 of our text edition), and a separate discussion by Marracci at the end of his Disquisitio.27
The death of Pope Alexander VII on 22 May 1667 caused a delay in the process of evaluation, which finally culminated in the condemnation by Pope Innocent XI on 6 March 1682. The efforts of the Sacromonte Abbey to defend the cause of the Lead Books were far from over yet, and some of the canons and abbots even continued to defend them until well into the twentieth century. After the books were condemned, no person outside the Vatican ever had access to them again until they were returned to Granada.
Alonso, Los apócrifos, 328 and n. 3.
Caro Baroja, Las falsificaciones de la historia (en relación con la de España), plate 20.
The manuscript is kept in the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid, shelfmark 9-2-2 99. The title pages (see the fotos in Caro Baroja, op. cit., plates 13 and 14) read: “Sol veritatis. Version Latina lineal de las laminas o libros de plomo descubiertos en el Monte Santo en la ciudad de Granada en 1595. El R. P. fr. Bartholome Pectorano fue como interprete, y abogado apostólico a la causa de los libros. La dedico a la santidad a el S. Alexandro VII en el año de 1666, teniendola en su bufete para leerla. Adolecio de el accidente que murio en 1667. En el siguiente Pontificado de Clemente IX hasta 1670 y en el de Clemente X hasta 1676 y en el de Ynocencio XI hasta que en 1680 se promovio la causa y empezo a tratar de ella, hasta que en el año de 1682 se dió el decreto proscriptivo. Prosiguió el author, y adicionó este trabajo y lo perficcionó más y más hasta que falleció in 1688.”
Alonso, Los apócrifos, 337, and see on Bartolomeo de Pettorano, Alonso, Los apócrifos, 328, n. 3. As we will have seen, Harvey made extensive use of the manuscript in his studies about the Lead Books.
Alonso, Los apócrifos, 338.
See Graf, Geschichte der Christlichen Arabischen Literatur, iv, 179.
See Alonso, Apócrifos, 338 (and the sources referred to by him), 374, 381.
Tottoli, Roberto, “Ludovico Marracci”; idem, “Prodromus ad refutationem Alcorani” and idem, “Refutatio Alcorani, in qua ad Mahumetanicae superstitionis radicem securis apponitur.” Bevilacqua, “The Qurʾān translations of Marracci and Sale”; Glei and Tottoli, Ludovico Marracci at Work; Pedani Fabris, “Ludovico Marracci: La Vita e l’opera.”
An exception is Stolzenberg, Egyptian Oedipus. Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity, 116.
See on this polemic: Alam and Subrahmanyam, “Frank Disputations. Catholics and Muslims in the court of Jahangir (1608–1611).”
On Guadagnoli see Pizzorusso, “Philippo Guadagnoli, i caraccioleni e lo studio delle lingue orientali e della controversia con l’Islam a Roma nel XVII secolo”; Tiburcio, “Filippo Guadagnoli,” in: CMR, consulted online on 22 March 2021.
Alonso, Los apócrifos, 341.
Alonso, Los apócrifos, 344.
Alonso, Los apócrifos, 341.
Alonso, Los apócrifos, 344–346.
Alonso, Los apócrifos, 349.
Alonso, Los apócrifos, 366.
ACDF, r7g, 247 fols.
ACDF, r7e, 315 fols. (including the Papal Bull of 1682 and the votes of the nine evaluators of the committee, mentioned in the following order on fol. 000c: Marracci, Casanatta, De Laurea, Bona, Suares, Ricci, Pollini, De Rubeis, and Allatii).
Heyberger, “L’islam et les Arabes chez un érudit maronite au service de l’Église catholique (Abraham Ecchellensis),” 500–501.
“Pars prima: Laminas Granatenses Mahumetanicis verbis, sententiis, fabulis, erroribus respersas esse.” Fol. 16a ff.
“Pars secunda: Laminas Granatenses multa sanae doctrinae dissona, quorum pleraque Mahumetanicis erroribus consonant, continere.” Fol. 48a ff.
“Pars tertia: Laminas Granatenses a sacris et ecclesiasticis historiis saepe dissentire, cum Machumetanicis conuenire.” Fol. 86a ff.
“Pars quarta: Alia quaedam a laminis Granatensibus confusim adnotata.”
“Pars quinta: Laminarum Granatensium techna et earundem authoris scopus” Fol. 122a ff.
“Pars quinta, Laminarum Granatensium techna.” Fol. 126b, esp. 127b ff.
“Membrana s. Caecilii breviter expensa.” Fol. 140a–b.