Hiob Ludolf (1624-1704) and Johann Michael Wansleben (1635-1679), the master and his erstwhile student could not be more different. Ludolf was a celebrated member of the Republic of Letters and the towering authority on Ethiopian studies. Wansleben, himself a brilliant scholar and, unlike Ludolf, a seasoned traveller in the Middle East, converted to Catholicism and eventually died impoverished and marginalized. Both stood at the centre of the burgeoning study of Ethiopia and spent a formative part of their career in middle sized Duchy of Saxe-Gotha which for several years played a pivotal role in Ethiopian-European encounters. This volume offers in-depth studies of the remarkable life and work of these two scholars in a broader intellectual, political, and confessional context.
Asaph Ben-Tov, PhD (2007) Habil. (2019), studies the Classical tradition and the history of oriental studies in early modern Europe, especially in Germany. He is the author of
Lutheran Humanists and Greek Antiquity (2009) and
Johann Ernst Gerhard (2021).
Jan Loop is Professor of Early Modern History and Religious Cultures at the University of Copenhagen. He is the author of
Johann Heinrich Hottinger: Arabic and Islamic Studies in the 17th Century (Oxford, 2013) and co-editor of
The Learning and Teaching of Arabic in Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2017).
Martin Mulsow is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Erfurt and director of the Gotha Research Centre. He is the author of
Enlightenment Underground (2015),
Knowledge Lost: A New View of Early Modern Intellectual History (2022) and
The Hidden Origins of the German Enlightenment (2023).
Contents
Acknowledgments List of Figures
1
Scholarship and the Quest for Ethiopia in the Seventeenth Century Hiob Ludolf and Johann Michael Wansleben
Jan Loop and Asaph Ben-Tov
Part 1: Hiob Ludolf: at the Gotha Court and in the Republic of Letters
2
Der Kosmopolit Hiob Ludolf im Lichte seines Stammbuches und des
Reysebüchleins Martin Mulsow
3
Hiob Ludolf als Amtsträger der Herzöge von Sachsen-Gotha Holger Kürbis
4
Hiob Ludolf und die globalen Ambitionen im Herzogtum Sachsen-Gotha des 17. Jahrhunderts Alexander Schunka
5
The Reluctant Alchemist Hiob Ludolf (1624–1704) as Chymical Intelligencer and the Curious Elias Ashmole (1617–1692)
Vera Keller
Part 2: Johann Michael Wansleben: Oriental Studies and Republicanism
6
Wansleben the Archaeologist Alastair Hamilton
7
Wansleben Reads Harrington Wansleben, the Harrington Manuscript, and English Republicanism
Gaby Mahlberg
8
Wansleben’s Interests in International Politics Thérèse-Marie Jallais
Part 3: Ethiopia and Lutheran Germany
9
Ludolf und seine äthiopischen Lehrer in Europa Der Gelehrte Abba Gorgoryos als Mitbegründer der Äthiopistik als wissenschaftliche Ethnographie
Wolbert G.C. Smidt
10
Peter Heyling als Äthiopienforscher Jürgen J. Tubach
Part 4: Ludolf and Biblical Studies
11
Hiob Ludolf and Biblical Evidences Scott Mandelbrote
12
Quail or Locust? What the Israelites Ate in the Desert Ulrich Groetsch
13
An Appendix to Coffee in the Bible Hiob Ludolf, Melchior Leydecker, and the Biblical Delicacy קלי (kali)
Benjamin Wallura
Part 5: Ludolf on the History of Languages and Writing
14
Hiob Ludolf, the Qurʾan, and the History of Writing Jan Loop
15
Ludolf’s Language Laws Pitfalls in Describing and Comparing the World’s Languages
Toon Van Hal
16
Kommen die Zigeuner aus Nubien? Hiob Ludolf zu einer Herkunftshypothese über die Sprache der Roma
Martin Mulsow
Part 6: Ludolf and Natural History
17
Einhörner und Geranomachien Ludolfs Wirkung auf die phantastische Zoologie seiner Zeit
Bernd Roling
18
Hiob Ludolf Observing Locusts Asaph Ben-Tov
Part 7: Ludolf on Chronology and the History of the Holy Roman Empire
19
Die Zeitrechnung der Samaritaner Ein Austausch zwischen Hiob Ludolf, Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel und Christoph Cellarius
Martin Mulsow
20
Hiob Ludolf als Präsident des Collegium Historicum Imperiale Jacob Schilling
21
‚… durch eine gewiße veranlaßung übernommen, historiam hujus seculi zu elaboriren …‘ Ludolf und die Allgemeine Schau-Bühne der Welt
Markus Meumann
Part 8: A Portrait of the Scholar
22
Die zeitgenössischen Portraits von Hiob Ludolf Stefan Weninger
Index
All interested in early modern scholarship in the Holy Roman Empire and the history of oriental and Ethiopic studies in particular, as well as any interested in the seventeenth-century Dutchy of Saxe-Gotha.