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171 the author of "Apologia Hebrseorum," published at Strasburg in 1559, in which he protested against the decree of Pius IV. commanding all Jews in Catholic countries to dress in orange or yellow to distinguish them from Christians. Both Ascoli and Cinelli, who praised the book in the "Bibliotheca Volante," suffered a long term of imprisonment for their free •criticism of the ecclesiastical authorities.

Bibliography

Didot et Hoefer, Nouvelle Biographic Unive rxelle, ill. 422: Nouveau Larowse lUu8lre 1. 502 Wolf, BiliL Hehr. Hi. 181 Rossi, Dizionario St'wico, translated by HanVberger, p. 49 Vogelstein and Rieger, Gescli. cler Ju:



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clrii

Ascher

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

171

in

Rom,

11.

153.

W.

Ci.

ASCOLI, GITJLIO



S.

mathematician died in Pisa. Reared

Italian

born in Triest Nov. 20, 1843 in a city with a large Italian-speaking population,

inclination drew young Ascoli to Milan, where, 'from 1874 until 1879, he taught mathematics at the Reale Istituto Tecnico Superiore. In the latter year he was appointed associate professor at the polytechnic school of Milan, and was elected corresponding member of the Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere. Ascoli's contributions to mathematics, which belong principally to the domain of the theory of functions, and deal particularly with Fourier's series, have been published in Brioschi's "Annali di Matematica," the reports of the Reale Istituto Lombardo, Battaglini's "Giornale di Matematica," the "Mathematische Annalen," the transactions of the Reale

a natural

Accademia

Brief notices of Ascoli's in the pages of the "Jahrbuch liber die Fortschritte der Mathedei Lincei, etc.

mathematical papers

matik

may be found

ASCOLI, GRAZIADIO ISAIAH: born July

16,

Italian

1829, at Gorice, Austria.

who had made a fortune in the manufacture of paper, died while Graziadio was an infant. Graziadio devoted himself at an early age to the study of languages, especially to comparative philology, to which latter he became passionately attached. At the age of sixteen he made a sensation in philological circles by a comparative study of the Friulian dialect and the Wallachian His father,

First

tongue

(" Sull'

IdiomaFriulano

e sulla

Work.

sua Afflnita con la Lingua Vallacca; Schizzo Storico-Filologico," Udine, 1846) a masterly work, considering that the subject had never before been treated, and that the boy philologist had not even a suggestion from a teacher. Ascoli thenceforth devoted himself with enthusiasm to the promotion of the study of philology in Italy and in 1854 he founded the first linguistic journal in his country under the title of "Studii Orientali e Linguistici." The vast erudition exhibited by the brilliant editor of the two volumes that appeared between 1854 and 1855 Appointed won for him the chair of comparative Professor philology at the AccademiaScientlfico-

—



in Milan.

At Milan Ascoli

realized his life-dream of reviving the study of languages in Italy and of reawakening the taste for the Oriental tongues, which, since the death of the two Assemani, had almost sunk into oblivion.

All the philologists of any importance in Italy Ascoli. He is one of the few really great pioneers that have given the study of language its present strictly scientific character and he has left the impress of his genius on almost ever}' brpnch of linguistics. In comparative philology, in the study of Oriental languages and of the

have been the disciples of

tongues and

dialects

of Europe, in the science of phonology in richly all these his creative and original

—

mind, combined with an unparalleled erudition and a rare sense penetration,

of

has

achieved brilliant and lasting results. His " Fonologia Comparata

del

Sanscrito,

del

Greco e del Latino (Turin and Florence, 1870



translated

G.

I.

Ascoli.

into

German by Bazzigher and

Schweizer-Sidler, Halle,

followed in 1877 by the " Studii Critici " (Turin and Florence; translated into •German by Merzdorf and Mangold, "Weimar, 1878) at a time when the discussion of phonetic principles was most active wrought a revolution in comparative Indo-Germanic philology. In particular, his distinction between the velar and the palatal gutturals as for instance between the sounds of "kite " and " quite solved many of the difficulties found in the application of Grimm's law in its cruder form. Ascoli is the author of many important discoveries in the science of phonology, he having been the first to formulate many of the Contribu- laws of phonetic change both in Italy tions to and abroad he is deemed one of the Philology. greatest authorities on all questions in this important branch of linguistics. Hardly less great is Ascoli's reputation as an authority on Romance philology; and his "Saggi Ladini " (Vienna, 1872 reprinted in vol. i. of the " Archivio Glottologico Italiano") was epoch-making in the study of Italian and the more closely allied Romance tongues, and brought forth a mass of important and valuable researches, published in the 1872),

—

" (Berlin).

Poggendorff, Biographisch-Litterarisches Bibliography: Hanchv&rterbuch. S. A. S. C.

philologist;

Ascoli

There he began Litteraria of Milan. his "Corsidi Glottologia," afterward

published and translated into English and German, and awarded the Bopp prize by the Berlin Academy.

—

—





"Archivio Glottologico Italiano" founded at that time by him. Ascoli is also the author of: "Lettere Glottologiche " (Turin and Milan, 1881-86), to which the Institute of

France awarded the Volney

prize,

and

which, like most of Ascoli's larger contributions, have been translated into German (by Gliterbock, " II Codice Irlandese dell' AmbrosiLeipsic, 1887) ana," edited and illustrated by himself, containing deep and fruitful researches on the Celtic tongues (published as vols. v. and vi. of the "Archivio Glottologico Italiano ") the " Saggi Indiani," an important contribution to comparative Indo-Germanic phi