Jakob Christmann

Jakob Christmann (1554 to 1613) was a German Orientalist who also studied problems of astronomy. Born in Johannisberg in November 1554 to a Jewish family and converted to Christianity before 1578, he studied oriental languages at the Collegium Sapientiae of the University of Heidelberg and became a teacher at the Dionysianum, then followed the humanist Thomas Erastus to Basel and continued a study tour through Breslau, Vienna and Prague. He joined the faculty of the Reformed Casimirianum at Neustadt in 1582 and wrote an Arabic grammar for it, returned to Heidelberg in 1584 and was appointed professor of Hebrew at the university in 1585. He catalogued the manuscripts of Guillaume Postel at Heidelberg Castle, published a Latin translation of the astronomy of Al-Farghani in 1590, and in 1609 became Europe second professor of Arabic.