(CE:2365b)
YUSUF AL-QIBTI, seventeenth-century Copt who lived in Rome. About 1624, Yusuf al-Qibti submitted a petition to Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644) to be employed as a scriptor at the Vatican Library and to correct proofs of books printed in Greek and in Arabic (Barberini Greek 280, fol. 29). This shows that Yusuf, who had probably become a Catholic priest in the meantime, had a good knowledge of Greek; it is this fact that led Levi Della Vida to believe he was a Melchite.
In 1624-1625, Yusuf copied several Arabic manuscripts that are now in the Vatican Library. In his catalog of the Arabic manuscripts of the Vatican, Joseph Simon Assemani calls Yusuf al-Qibti Ioseph Aegyptius.
KHALIL SAMIR, S.J.
