URBINO, GIUSTO DA
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Giusto da Urbino (August 30, 1814-1856), an Italian Capuchin missionary in Ethiopia from 1846-1855, who became an authority on the Semitic languages of Ethiopia.
Jacopo Curtopassi, as he was called at birth, was born at Matraia, Lucca, in Italy, on August 30, 1914. When he became a Capuchin in 1831, he received the religious name of Giusto da Urbino. He was selected to participate in the mission to Ethiopia led by Father Guglielmo, later Cardinal, Massaia.
He landed at Massawa, on the Red Sea coast, in December 1846, and, after a short stay in Agamé, lived in Bagemder until his expulsion in May 1855 by Abuna Salama. In April 1856 he intended to re-enter Ethiopia via the Sudan, but died in Khartoum.
During his years in Ethiopia, Giusto da Urbino acquired a remarkable competence in the Semitic languages of that country. He studied Gallinya, and wrote an Ethiopic (Ge’ez)-Latin dictionary, compiled in 1849, which is now preserved in Rome.
Other manuscripts by him are preserved in Rome and Paris. There is a dispute among scholars about the authorship of two rationalistic treatises, which are variously ascribed either to the 17th-century Ethiopian author named Zare’a Ya’eqob and his disciple Walda Heyewat, or to Giusto da Urbino himself.
CLAUDE SUMNER
