Assemani and Hagiography: the Acta Sanctorum martyrium orientalium et occidentalium (1748) and the agiographic manuscripts in the BAV.BAV CATALOGUE (1758-1759)

In 1715, Pope Clemens XI sent Josephus Simonius Assemani into Egypt and Syria, in order to find religious manuscripts to improve the Vatican collection. Two years later, Assemani comes back to Rome with approximately 150 “new” manuscripts; two of them, catalogued as Vaticanus Syriacus 160 and 161, preserve ancient Syriac collections of Persian Martyr Acts. In 1748, on the basis of the two mentioned manuscripts, Stephanus Evodius Assemani published the Acta Sanctorum Martyrum Orientalium et Occidentalium, proclaiming in his Praefatio Generalis the absolute utility and importance of the example supplied by those Eastern saints. During 1758 and 1759 Josephus Simonius and Stephanus Evodius edited the BAV catalogue for the two volumes concerning the Syriac manuscripts. These three dates offer a starting point for an analysis of the attention and attitude of Josephus Simonius and Stephanus Evodius Assemani toward the Syriac hagiographic texts. The paper will look at the description of some hagiographic manuscripts proposed in the BAV catalogue, trying to stress two main points: (a) the interest of the Assemani scholars in hagiography; (b) their contribution to our knowledge, in particular, of the literature of the Eastern saints and martyrs.