CHIARINI, LUIGI°

CHIARINI, LUIGI° (1789–1832), Italian abbé, Orientalist, and antisemitic author. Invited to Poland from Tuscany, Chiarini obtained the chair of Oriental languages at Warsaw University through the protection of Potocki, the minister of education. In 1826 he became a member of the government-appointed "Jewish committee." In his Théorie du Judaïsme (1830), Chiarini slandered the Talmud and the rabbinate in the style of johann eisenmenger , and tried to revive the blood libel . He considered that the state should assist the Jews in liberating themselves from the influence of the Talmud. He began a French translation of the Babylonian Talmud under the auspices of Czar Nicolas I, of which two volumes were published (1831), despite protests from both Jewish and Catholic quarters. Among his critics were L. Zunz and M. Jost in Germany and J. Tugenhold in Poland. Chiarini was compelled to give up his project because of the Polish uprising. His other works include a Hebrew grammar, in Latin; a Hebrew-Latin dictionary, and a paper "Dei funerarii degli ebrei polacchi" ("Concerning the Funerals of the Polish Jews," Bologna, 1826). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nouvelle Biographie Générale, 10 (1854), 294–5; I. Schipper (ed.), Żydzi w Polsce odrodzonej, 1 (1932), 437–44; A. Levinsohn, Toledot Yehudei Varshah (1953), 112–6.