Giovan Francesco Buonamico, linguist and philologist

Abstract

Giovan Francesco Buonamico (1639-1680) is renowned for his multifarious activity in the course of the seventeenth century. An eighteenth-century biographer describes him as being extremely well versed as an "Astronomus, Geographus, Nummographus, Antiquarius, Mechanicus, Geometra, Mathematicus, Medicus, Physicus, ac Poeta, et Orator". He can also be considered to have been a budding linguist of his times. Indeed, his inclusive interest in different languages is evident in his use of Latin, Italian, French and Maltese for his literary and academic works. His biographer writes that "quin etiam praetor Hollandicam, Germanicam, Gallicam, Hispanicam, Italicam, propriamque Melitensem, seu corruptam Arabum lingua, Graecas quoque, Latinasque literas apprime possidebat".