An Ethiopian Lucretius? Giusto da Urbino and the Origins of the Ḥatäta Zärʾa Yaʿɘqob Controversy

This paper sets out new archival breakthroughs concerning the context of the ‘discovery’ of the work that came to be known as the Hatata Zera Yacob, or, as it was known at the time, the Warqe. It presents new, previously unpublished evidence that, in the context of the mission to evangelise the Oromo people of southern Ethiopia, accusations were made against one Fr. Giusto da Urbino, to the effect that he had endorsed, edited, or even forged a heretical work of philosophy; and that senior Catholic authorities attempted to suppress the work. This has important implications for the historiography of the subsequent century-long debate over the authorship of the Hatata Zera Yacob. First, it pushes the origins of the authorship debate back by sixty years to 1856. Second, it reframes the initial context of the authorship debate from Italian colonial aggression in the twenties and thirties to interconfessional conflict between Ethiopian Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant actors at a pivotal moment in Ethiopian political history: the transition from the Zemene Mesafint to the ‘modern’ Ethiopian Empire with the coronation of Emperor Tewodros II. Third, it highlights various enduring blind spots in the scholarship with regards to Giusto da Urbino’s linguistic and scholarly pursuits as well as the range of intellectual and religious circles in which he moved in both Europe and Ethiopia. We examine the intellectual, religious, and political background of these archival discoveries, connecting missionary work with the establishment of scholarly collections in Europe.