[a Wunderkammer of Hindu antiquities] Systema Brahmanicum Liturgicum Mythologicum Civile ex Monumentis Indicis Musei Borgiani Velitris dissertationibus historico-criticis illustravit Fr. Paullinus a S. Bartholomaeo Carmelita Discalceatus Malabariae Missionarius Academia Volscorum Veliternae Socius

4° (mm 250x190); pp. XII, 326. Al frontespizio, vignetta incisa raffigurante Ganesha e 32 tavole fuori testo (di cui una a doppia pagina). Nel testo, caratteri in sanscrito. Legatura coeva in piena pelle marezzata. Bell'esemplare.

First edition.

As the title well explains, the Systema Brahmanicum by the Indologist Paulinus of St. Bartholomew - valuable compendium of Brahmanism - is closely based on the collection of Indica reperta from the famous Borgia Museum in Velletri, profusely illustrated by the engravings. The volume, therefore, can be browsed as a kind of 'exegetical catalog' of the Hindu collection.

The ancient Borgia Museum in Velletri, formed between the 17th and 18th centuries by the Roman branch of the Borgia family, was greatly enriched and enlarged in the second half of the 18th century by Cardinal Stefano Borgia (1731 – 1804), a man of vast culture who was a scholar of history and ethnology. The Museum, famous throughout Europe for the variety and the rarity of the reperta as well as the singularity of the collections, included artifacts from all parts of the world and was divided into nine sections, one of which dedicated to Hindu manuscripts and relics.

Paulinus of St. Bartholomew (Leithaberge in Lower Austria, 1748 - Rome, 1806) was an Austrian Carmelite missionary and Orientalist of Croatian origin. He is credited with being the author of the first Sanskrit grammar to be published in Europe, and for being one of the first Orientalists to remark upon the close relationship between Indian and European languages, followed by others such as William Jones and Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux.

Having entered into the seminary of the missions of his order at Rome, he did Oriental studies at the College of St Pancratius. He was sent in 1774 as missionary to Malabar, India. After spending fourteen years in India, he was appointed vicar-general of his order and apostolic visitor. He was very well versed in languages: he spoke German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese, English, Malayalam, Sanskrit, and some other languages of India. He became known in Kerala as Paulinus Paathiri. He was one of the first to detect the similarity between Sanskrit and Indo-European languages, though the very first was likely Fr Thomas Stephens, SJ.

Recalled in 1789 to Rome to give an account of the state of the mission in Indostan, he was charged with editing books – to correct the Catechisms and elementary books printed at Rome – for the use of missionaries.

In Rome, he came into contact with Cardinal Stefano Borgia (1731 – 1804), Secretary of Propaganda Fide, antiquarian scholar and patron, who had set up in Velletri, his native city, the very well-endowed Museo Borgiano. Cardinal Borgia appointed him his private secretary and financed the publication of many volumes of indology, including the first European grammar of the Sanskrit language (Sidharubam seu Grammatica Samscrdamica), published in Rome in 1790.