Johannes Potken

Johannes Potken (c.1470- c.1525) was a German scholar, papal secretary and printer from Cologne, active at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In 1513 he had printed in Rome the "Psalterium David et Cantica aliqua", in Ge'ez. [Described as "the first book ever to be printed in Ethiopic, the first book to be printed in Rome in any oriental language other than Hebrew, and the first Psalter to be printed in any language other than Hebrew, Greek, or Latin." [http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Vatican_GIFS/About_11559.html] .] [Image of page: [http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/h-orient_to_rome/images/orient06.jpg] .] It was a collection of psalms and other canticles.

Potken had learned the language from the Ethiopian "abba" Thomas Walda Samuel [Tomas of Waldiba [http://www.angelfire.com/ak/sellassie/articles.html] .] , a pilgrim to Jerusalem and guest of Pope Leo X. This was the beginning of European publishing of Ethiopian literature (although misidentified by Potken as 'Chaldean'.) The work included a syllabary, "Alphabetus, seu potius Syllabarius literarum Chaldaearium". The font was made by Marcellus Silber, a printer in Regensburg.

He was in Rome as a long term papal protonotary; he became provost of the church of St. Georg, Cologne. He edited also the quadrilingual "Psalterium in quatuor linguis Hebraea Graeca Chaldaea Latina", which appeared in 1531, with Johann Soter. [http://www.smu.edu/bridwell/specialcollections/prothroexhibit/prothrobibliography.htm] He was a correspondent of Sebastian Brant and Johannes Reuchlin. [http://www.ruhrtalmuseum.de/Das_15_Jh.34.0.html]

References

*Anna Dorothea von den Brincken, "Johann Potken aus Schwerte, Propst von St. Georg in Köln, der erste Äthiopologe des Abendlandes", in: Aus Köln und rheinischer Geschichte (1969) 51-60
*"German Printers and the German Community in Renaissance Rome" MAAS Library.1976; s5-XXXI: 118-126

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