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Barthélemy d'Herbelot
Image: Gérard Edelinck (engraving, 17th century), Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Barthélemy d'Herbelot

بارتلمي ديربلو

Notable figure 1625–1695 · Source: Najib al-Aqiqi, al-Mustashriqun, 3rd ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1964), vol. 1, p. 173; Yahya Murad, Muʿjam asmaʾ al-mustashriqin, p. 1078 · Second source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, authority record: Herbelot, Barthélemy d' (1625-1695)

Field: Reference works

Affiliation

Author of the Bibliothèque orientale (1697)

Biography

Born in Paris, he studied Arabic and its sister languages, then lived in Italy, frequenting scholars from the East in its ports; Ferdinando II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, presented him with a collection of Arabic manuscripts. Back in France he became interpreter of Oriental languages at court and held the chair of Syriac at the Collège royal in Paris. His Bibliothèque orientale, an alphabetical dictionary of the authors, books and letters of the Islamic East, was completed by Antoine Galland and published after his death (Paris, 1697).