[Alphabetum Adamiticum]

Rome, Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, [c. 1636]. Oblong, 8vo, (12 x 19 cm.). 12 leaves issued without title page. Vellum, new endpapers. Twelve extraordinary alphabets, partly printed in woodcut by the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide at the Vatican. The first three are "alphabets of Adam" taken from the work of Giacomo Bonaventura Scozese and from Lorenzo Schradero, followed by four Hebrew alphabets by Soprasilvio, Testo and Garamond 2x. The eighth was copied from a stone inscription (Mount Oreb), the ninth is an analysis thereof by Athenasius Kircher. The last three are Estranghelo, Samaritan and Chaldean alphabets.

The Propaganda Fide was founded by Pope Gregory XV in 1622 in order to spread catholic teaching in the east as a counterpart of protestantism, which was spread by the Dutch and British in their Asian colonies. Cf. Smitskamp, Philologia orientalis 199, p. 174 and Birrell & Garnett 4, p. 4. Scarce.