Juan Vernet Ginés or Joan Vernet i Ginés (1923 - 2011) was a Spanish science historian, Arabist and professor at the

University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat de Barcelona, UB; ; es, link=no, Universidad de Barcelona) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, in Spain. With 63,000 students, it is one of the biggest universities i ...

for over thirty years. He was the pupil and intellectual heir of orientalist Maria Millàs Vallicrosa. The rigor and scope of his scholarly work give him international authority in the field of the history of science and cultural transfers between East and West. Author of the book "What culture owes to the Arabs of Spain", he is also a translator of the

quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

and the Thousand and One Nights in the Spanish language (Castilian).

Bibliography

Juan Vernet was born on 31 July 1923 in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

in a family originating in Tarragona. In the years 1931–1932, Juan Vernet is a student at Colegio Alemán (German College), located in Barcelona3. In 1933, he attended the municipal school of Prades (province of Tarragona. From 1936 until 1939, he was studying for his baccalaureate at the Salmerón Institute, rue Muntaner in Barcelona4. He learns French by memorizing texts and translating news. In his intellectual autobiography. Affected very young by chronic

bronchitis Bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchi (large and medium-sized airways) in the lungs that causes coughing. Bronchitis usually begins as an infection in the nose, ears, throat, or sinuses. The infection then makes its way down to the bronchi. ...

, which afflicted him all his life, he is forced to long months of confinement and bed rest that he devotes to study. As a teenager, he begins to decipher cuneiform writing when he can visit the prestigious Ateneo Library in Barcelona where he discovers the Assyriology Journal and the works containing the Hammurabi correspondence.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vernet, Juan 1923 births 2011 deaths University of Barcelona Spanish Arabists 20th-century Spanish historians