AhlulBayt News Agency - Representative of ‘Towards a Critical Edition of the Metaphysics (Ilahiyyat of Kitab al-Shifa’) of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) into English’ in Scuola Normale Superiore University attended in the Malek National Library and Museum institution and studied the oldest version of Shifa’, the immortal work of Avicenna.
Amos Bertolacci, professor of Islamic philosophy in the Italian Scuola Normale Superiore University, who have traveled to Iran in this April by the invitation of Dr. Ali Akbar Velayati, said after visiting the manuscripts of Malek National Library and Museum, “I have come to Iran for developing the ‘Towards a Critical Edition of the Metaphysics (Ilahiyyat of Kitab al-Shifa’) of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) into English’ as well as investigating the possibilities of expanding the relations and cultural attachments with Iranian cultural, scientific, and library centers and institutions.”
“Avicenna has connected the Greek philosophy to the western Latin in the European Middle Ages. This great Iranian philosopher is very significant in this regard.
The available corrections carried out so far from Avicenna’s Theology of cure have been made mainly based on six versions none of which have been existing in Iran while we know that there are more than 200 versions of Metaphysics, most of which exist in Iran. One of these is the oldest version which its inscribing dates back to 509 A.H./1115 A.D. and is being preserved in the Malek National Library and Museum.”
Concerning the method of correction of this great work, the professor of Scuola Normale Superiore University pointed out, “There are many translations of this precious work of Avicenna in Latin, Persian, French, German, Italian, English, and Turkish. Iranian commentators have put many comments to this work. A Lithography transcript has been published many years ago in Tehran. Also, Allameh Hassanzadeh Amoli and Hamed Naji Isfahani have edited the book. These two editions have made use of those versions existing in Iran following the Iranian philosophy tradition.”
Regarding the goals of ‘Towards a Critical Edition of the Metaphysics (Ilahiyyat of Kitab al-Shifa’) of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) in Italian, he added, “What we follow in this project is, in the first place, detecting all versions of Metaphysics. Then we look for gathering the digital files of these versions as far as possible. Finally, we are going to edit and translate the version into English critically using the methodology described in the website of the project; ‘avicenaaproject.eu’.”
Professor of Scuola Normale Superiore University who has come to Iran for the first time said at the end of his visit, “In this trip, I visited the Malek National Library and Museum twice. After this, I will refer to the library of Majlis to use its manuscripts as well. Treasury of Manuscripts of Malek National Library and Museum is very valuable and peerless. The services in this treasury are also rendered at the highest level. I believe that such an organized library can be hardly found in Europe and America. Moreover, a good condition of professional behavior for cooperating with foreign scientific institutions has been provided in this center.”