Amable Jourdain
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Amable Jourdain (25 January 1788, Paris – 19 February 1818) was an early 19th-century French historian and orientalist, a student of
Louis-Mathieu Langlès Louis-Mathieu Langlès (23 August 1763 – 28 January 1824) was a French academic, philologist, linguist, translator, author, librarian and oriental studies, orientalist. He was the conservator of the oriental manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nat ...
and Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, a specialist of ancient
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
and the Latin transmission of
Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
.


Work

His most importants works are ''La Perse ou Tableau de gouvernement, de la religion et de la littérature de cet Empire'', published in 1814, and ''Recherches critiques sur l'âge et l'origine des traductions latines d'Aristote, et sur des commentaires grecs ou arabes employés par les docteurs scholastiques'', published ''post mortem'' in 1819 and reprinted in 1843. In this second work, based on a series of questions posed by the
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres The () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the . The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres). History ...
on the influence exercised by the Arabic philosophers on Western
scholasticism Scholasticism was a medieval European philosophical movement or methodology that was the predominant education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. It is known for employing logically precise analyses and reconciling classical philosophy and Ca ...
, Jourdain tries to answer rigorously by examining the preserved texts and manuscripts to the following three questions: "Do we owe the Arabs the first knowledge of some works of the ancient Greek philosophers and of Aristotle in particular? At what time, and by what means, did this communication take place for the first time? Has it brought any modification to scholastic philosophy?". Indeed, since the 18th, very different opinions, not supported by a thorough examination according to Jourdain, were expressed on the introduction of the texts of Aristotle in medieval Christian West, its date and its Byzantine or Arabic origin: On the one hand for example, the Italian
Ludovico Antonio Muratori Lodovico Antonio Muratori (21 October 1672 – 23 January 1750), commonly referred to in Latin as Muratorius, was an Italian Catholic priest, notable as historian and a leading scholar of his age, and for his discovery of the Muratorian fragmen ...
had defended the idea of an early and exclusively Byzantine branch (''Non ergo ex Arabum penu .. sed e Græcia''), while the Spaniard of Lebanese origin
Miguel Casiri Miguel Casiri (; Mikhael Ghaziri) (1710–1791) was a learned Maronite and Orientalist. Biography He was born in Tripoli, Lebanon (formerly in Ottoman Syria). He studied at Rome, where he lectured on Arabic, Syriac, Aramaic, philosophy an ...
maintained that the direct translations of Greek had been very late ('' ..adeo ut hac Arabica versione latine reddita, priusquam Aristoteles Græcus repertus esset, divus Thomas ceterique scholastici usi fuerint''). The conclusions of the Jourdain inquiry were as follows: until the beginning of the 13th, the texts of Aristotle (apart from the ''Logica vetus'', that is to say the translation of three or four Treatises on logic by
Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known simply as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480–524 AD), was a Roman Roman Senate, senator, Roman consul, consul, ''magister officiorum'', polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middl ...
), were neither widespread nor used in the Christian West, nor were those of the Aristotelian Arabic philosophers
Avicenna Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...
,
Averroes Ibn Rushd (14 April 112611 December 1198), archaically Latinization of names, Latinized as Averroes, was an Arab Muslim polymath and Faqīh, jurist from Al-Andalus who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astron ...
). In 1274 (the year of the death of
Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...
), all Aristotle's work was known and used in the universities of Paris, Oxford, etc.; It entered them massively from the years 1220–25, and by both Arab and Byzantine ways (according to the texts). The translations made directly from the Greek progressively replaced, as they were available, those which had passed through Arabic. As pertains the influence of Arab Aristotelianism on western Christian scholasticism, he concluded that it was of the order of the given example and of the emulation created, urging the Latins to systematically seek the original version of the texts. One of the contributions of Jourdain's book was to introduce the expression "college of the translators of Toledo", which then flourished to designate the translations from
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
to
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
In Spain in the middle of the 12th. However, this expression, by its too formal character, is no longer suitable to recent historians.Cf. Richard Lemay, « Les traductions de l'arabe au latin », ''Annales, économies, sociétés, civilisations'', vol. 18, 1963, pp.639-665 : "Any historian interested in the transmission of Arabic knowledge to the West in the twelfth century is all too often confronted with the famous legend of the "School of Translators of Toledo" which would have been founded, or at least protected, favored by Raymond, archbishop of Toledo from 1124 to 1151. The legend probably dates back to the scholar A. Jourdain, and to the admiration he professed for the translators who worked in the Entourage of Raymond". Adeline Rucquoi, « Littérature scientifique aux frontières du Moyen Âge hispanique : textes en traduction », ''Euphrosyne. Revista de filologia clássica'', Nova Serie XXXVII, 2009, pp.193-210: "The expression "The college of translators", invented by Amable Jourdain on the existence of two characters, then made a fortune and remains one of the great '' topoï'' of researches on the Hispanic intellectual life of the twelfth. The two translators identified by Jourdain were
Dominicus Gundissalinus Dominicus Gundissalinus, also known as Domingo Gundisalvi or Gundisalvo ( 1115 – after 1190), was a philosopher and translator of Arabic to Medieval Latin active in Toledo, Spain. Among his translations, Gundissalinus worked on Avicenna's ''Liber ...
and
John of Seville John of Seville (Latin: ''Johannes Hispalensis'' or ''Johannes Hispaniensis'') (fl. 1133-53) was one of the main translators from Arabic into Castilian in partnership with Dominicus Gundissalinus during the early days of the Toledo School of Tr ...
.
It was the work of Jourdain to enumerate the Latin texts and commentaries used by the scholastics and to determine from which sources (Arabic or directly Greek) they were derived. In 1817 he won the prize of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. Jourdain was a member of the
Institut de France The ; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the . It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute manages approximately ...
and assistant secretary of the Royal School of Oriental Languages (post created for him).


Private life

Amable Jourdain was married to Marie-Philotime Rougeot (1795–1862), who is buried at
Montmartre Cemetery The Cemetery of Montmartre () is a cemetery in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France, that dates to the early 19th century. Officially known as the Cimetière du Nord, it is the third largest necropolis in Paris, after the Père Lachaise Cemet ...
. In the tomb also, is the father of Marie-Philotime Rougeot, Antoine Rougeot (1762–1841), former first-class surgeon of military hospitals, Charles Bréchillet-Jourdain (1817–1886), a charitable doctor in the fifth arrondissement of Paris, the son of Amable Jourdain and Philotime Rougeot, member of the institute, philosopher and writer, Inspector General for Higher Education, Secretary General of the Ministry of Education (Minister
Félix Esquirou de Parieu Marie-Louis-Pierre Félix Esquirou de Parieu (13 April 1815– 8 April 1893) was a French statesman. Life Born in Aurillac, Cantal, Esquirou de Parieu was notably Minister of Education and Public Worship from 1849 to 1851, and headed the Fre ...
) husband of Elizabeth Meunier, (1825–1868), who also rests in the tomb, which is to be found in the 21st division, avenue Cordier.


Publications

* 1810. ''Mémoire sur l'observatoire de Méragah et sur quelques instrumens employés pour y observer'' * 1812. ''Notice de l'histoire universelle de Mirkhond, intitulée "le Jardin de la pureté"'' * 1813. ''Le jardin de la pureté, contenant l'histoire des prophètes, des rois et des Khalifes, par Mohammed, fels de Khavendschah, connu sous le nom de Mirkhond'' * 1814.
Lettre à M. Michaud sur une singulière croisade d'enfants
' * 1814. ''La Perse, ou Tableau de l'histoire du gouvernement, de la religion, de la littérature, etc., de cet Empire'', en cinq volumes * 1819.
Recherches critiques sur l'âge et l'origine des traductions latines d'Aristote, et sur des commentaires grecs ou arabes employés par les docteurs scholastiques
' (couronné par l' académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres), translated in German in 1831 * ????. ''Notice historique sur Aboul-Féda et ses ouvrages'' * 1843. ''Recherches critiques sur l'́âge et l'origine des traductions latines d'́Aristole, et sur des commentaires grecs ou arabes employés par les docteurs scholastiques'', version corrigée par Charles Marie Gabriel Bréchillet Jourdain (1817-1886), son fils * 1860. ''De l'origine des traditions sur le christianisme de
Boèce Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known simply as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480–524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, ''magister officiorum'', polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central fig ...
''


References


Bibliography

* Marietta Gargatagli, ''La historia de la escuela de traductores de Toledo'', in Quaderns Revista de Traducció, vol. IV (1999), pp. 9–13 * Julio César Santoyo, ''La "escuela de traductores" de Íñigo López de Mendoza, marqués de Santillana''
''Etica y política de la traducción literaria''
Miguel Gómez Ediciones, 2004. .


External links


Notice biographique
(Dictionnaire historique)
Notice biographique
(Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne - Michaud), à la page 55 la biographie de son père. * Amable Jourdain
chapitre III de son ouvrage ''Recherches critiques sur l'âge et l'origine des traductions latines...''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jourdain, Amable 1788 births Scientists from Paris 1818 deaths French Iranologists Translators from Persian Greek–French translators Latin–French translators 19th-century French translators 18th-century French translators