Faraj Ben Salim Or Moses Farachi Of Girgent (Known Also As Faragut, Fararius,

Charles of Anjou Presenting Arabic Manuscript to Faraj for Translation.(From an illumination by Friar Giovanni in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.)

Italian physician and translator; flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century. He was engaged by King Charles of Anjou as translator of medical works from Arabic into Latin. In this capacity he rendered a great service to medicine by making a Latin translation of Razi's medical encyclopedia, "Al-Ḥawi" (published 1486, under the title "Continens," with a glossary by the translator). The translation is followed, between the same covers, by "De Ex-positionibus Vocabulorum seu Synonimorum Simplicis Medicinæ," which Steinschneider supposes to form a part of the "Continens." As a token of his esteem for the translator, Charles of Anjou ordered that on the original copy of the manuscript of the "Continens" (MS. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, No. 6912) the portrait of Faraj should be drawnbeside his own by Friar Giovanni of Monte Cassino, the greatest illuminator of his time.

Faraj also translated "De Medicinis Expertis," attributed to Galen and included in his works published by Juntas and Chartres (x. 561-570), and "Tacuini Ægritudinum" (Arabic, "Taḳwim al-Abdan"), by Ali ibn Jazla, published at Strasburg, 1532. Steinschneider believes that to Faraj should also be ascribed the Latin translation of Masawaih's treatise on surgery (MS. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, No. 7131), said to have been made by a certain "Ferrarius."

Bibliography:

  * Wüstenfeld, Die Uebersetzungen Arabischer Werke in das Lateinische, p. 107;
  * Steinschneider, in Virchow's Archiv, xxxix. 296;
  * idem, Cat. Bodl. col. 979;
  * idem, Hebr. Bibl. xx. 136;
  * idem, Hebr. Uebers. p. 974.



G. I. Br.