Celestino Schiaparelli’s Papers at the Library of the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies. A first survey

Celestino S chiaparelli’s p apers, donated with his books to the Scuola Orientale of S a- pienza U niversity of R ome, and now housed at the L ibrary of the I talian I nstitute of O riental Studies, provide us with testimony of his study and research activity on Sicilian Arab poets like Ibn Ḥamdīs and al-Billanubi, on the King Roger’s Book of geographer Edrisi, but contains also transcrip- tion and translation, notes and works on some Arabic codices, some of which are unpublished like the Arabic Arithmetic text by Aḥmad b. Muḥ. Ibn al-Hā’im and studies on Egyptian financial admin- istration. The reordering of Schiaparelli’s papers, the identification of manuscripts and their description will be able to help Orientalist scholars shed light on the studies of Arabic poetry and literature by a largely unknown 19th-century Arabist who greatly contributed to the study and knowledge of S icilian Arabism.