Alberti, John

, a German lawyer of the 16th century, born at Widmanstadt, deeply learned in the Oriental languages, gave an abridgment of the Koran, with critical notes, 1543, 4to; a work which procured him the title of chancellor of Austria, and chevalier of St. James. He published in 4to, in 1556, a New Testament in Syriac, from the manuscript used by the Jacobites, at the expence of the emperor Ferdinand I. It contains neither the second epistle of Peter, nor the second and third of John, nor that of Jude, nor the Apocalypse. Only 1000 copies were printed, of which five hundred remained in Germany, and the rest were sent to the Levant. It is impossible for any thing to be more elegant, or better proportioned, says pere Simon, than the characters of this edition. Some copies have the date of T562. He also composed a Syriac grammar, to which is prefixed a very curious preface. He died in 1559. ³

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