Giovanni Battista Eliano

Giovanni Battista Eliano (né Solmon Romano; 1530 – 3 March 1589) was a Jesuit priest and scholar of Oriental languages.

[3] His maternal grandfather was the noted scholar Elias Levita, whence he adopted the surname Eliano.

He then travelled in Italy, and in Venice he tried to bring his brother back into the fold of the synagogue, in which he did not succeed; on the contrary, he became himself a convert to Christianity, and was baptised in 1551.

[1] In 1561 Pope Pius IV sent him to the Patriarch of the Copts, together with Roderich, a member of his Order.

He translated Giovanni Bruno's catechism, which was written against the Oriental heretics, into three Shemitic languages, and translated into Arabic the Latin decrees of the Council of Trent, for the sake of having them circulated in the East.