Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Austrian oriental scholar, 1774-1856
Baron Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall was an pioneering Austrian orientalist and historian. Entering the diplomatic service in 1796, he was appointed in 1799 to a position in the Austrian embassy in Istanbul, and in this capacity he took part in the expedition under Admiral William Sidney Smith and General John Hely-Hutchinson against France. In 1807 he returned home from the East, after which he was made a privy councillor. For fifty years Hammer-Purgstall wrote prolifically on the most diverse subjects and published numerous texts and translations of Arabic, Persian and Turkish authors. He was the first to publish a complete translation of the divan of Hafez into a western language.















![Falknerklee, bestehend in drey ungedruckten Werken über die Falknerey [...] aus dem Türkischen und Griechischen verdeutscht.](https://inlibris.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/img-bn51176-324x324.jpg)

![[Kesfü'z-zünun 'an esami el-kutub ve-l-fünun]. Encyclopädische Uebersicht der Wissenschaften des Orients, aus sieben arabischen, persischen und türkischen Werken übersetzt.](https://inlibris.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/img-bn52484-324x324.jpg)
![[Atwaq al-dhahab]. Samachschari's Goldene Halsbänder. Als Neujahrsgeschenk arabisch und deutsch [...].](https://inlibris.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/img-bn49804-324x324.jpg)