Zingerle, Pius (Jacob) (1801–1881)

Scholar of Syriac, monk at Marienberg and professor at the Sapienza in Rome.

Jacob Zingerle was born on 17 March 1801, to a Roman Catholic merchant family in Meran, Southern Tyrol. After completing his high school education, Zingerle studied philosophy and theology at the university of Innsbruck. During this period, Zingerle’s interest in ancient languages was first stimulated, and he began his pursuit of Arabic, Greek, and particularly Syriac. In 1820, while still a university student, Zingerle entered the Benedictine monastery Marienberg at Meran, taking the name ‘Pius’. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1824. Zingerle initially served as assistant priest to a couple of local parishes before being called back to Marienberg in 1830, where he became a teacher at the monastery-run high school.

Zingerle spent most of the next three decades of his life in Meran. He combined his work as instructor and later principal of the school with a busy translation, and publication, schedule that yielded, amongst others, six volumes of Ephrem ’s works and several collections of Syriac poetry in translation. In 1861, Pius IX called Zingerle to Rome, installing him as professor of Arabic at the Sapienza. Zingerle also served as scrittore for the Vatican Library, an office that allowed him access to primary sources that would fuel his scholarship for the rest of his life.

Health concerns and homesickness brought him back to Marienberg in 1864, where he remained until his death on 10 Jan. 1881. During this final period of his life, Zingerle published, amongst other works, a Syriac chrestomathy and dictionary; he is best remembered for his translations of Ephrem’s and Yaʿqub of Serugh ’s sermons.