The Rediscovery and Modern Reception of Ethiopian Philosophy

For roughly two centuries after their composition, the Hatatas of Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat circulated only within Ethiopian manuscript culture, unknown to European or wider academic philosophy. Their transmission to European scholarly attention is credited to Giusto da Urbino, an Italian Catholic missionary who lived in Ethiopia in the mid-nineteenth century and who obtained, copied, and produced a Latin translation of the Ge'ez manuscripts, forwarding material and information about the texts to contacts in Europe — the same transmission event that, as noted above, has also become the focus of the modern authenticity controversy, since no independently attested manuscript witness of the Hatata has been securely dated to before his involvement.