InstituçõEs Da Lingua Arabiga. Baptista, Antonio.

First edition. A very smart copy of the first Arabic grammar published in Portugal, extremely uncommon, with none traced on auction records and British Library and Oxford only among UK institutional libraries. Antonio do Rosário Baptista Abrantes (1737-1813) was first professor of Arabic at the Convento de Nossa Senhora de Jesus at Lisbon, the country's leading centre for Oriental studies, and taught Arabic to the Franciscan Ordem Terceira da Penitencia. Baptista himself learnt Arabic from the Antonine Maronite monk and scholar Paulo Hodar (1720-1780), also known as Bulus al-Haddar, an important figure in the teaching of Arabic in the Iberian Peninsula. In 1788 Baptista was appointed confessor to Maria Benedita of Braganza, the youngest daughter of Joseph I and chaplain-major to the Portuguese royal navy in 1794. In 1807, he "migrated with the Royal family to Brazil, where he was confessor of the princess Carlota Joaquina de Borbon y Borbon. He died in Rio de Janeiro in 1813" (Zwartjes, p. 243). His book is modelled on that of the great Dutch Arabist Thomas Erpinius (Thomas van Erpen), includes an Arabic version of the first psalm of David and a table of "African" and "Levantine" words. Otto Zwartjes, Portuguese Missionary Grammars in Asia, Africa and Brazil, 1550-1800, 2011; an online search of institutional libraries shows 10 further locations, at Columbia, NY Public Library, Catholic University of America, Gottingen, Strasbourg, BnF, Amsterdam, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Leiden, and Spain's Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas. Octavo (171 x 112 mm). Contemporary Portuguese mottled calf, spine with five raised bands, each decorated with a gilt milled roll, compartments with scrolling foliate decoration framing a central sunwheel motif, red label, sides with panel of two sets of paired gilt fillets framing a scrolling foliate roll, foliate corner-pieces and edge roll, Turkish pattern marbled endpapers, red edges. Woodcut royal arms to title page. Binding just a little rubbed at extremities. An excellent copy, crisp and complete, in an attractive and well-preserved period binding, complete with half-title and terminal leaf 2A4.