Jakob Christmann

Jakob Christmann (November 1554 – 16 June 1613) was a German Orientalist who also studied problems of astronomy.

Christmann, a Jew who converted before 1578 to Christianity, studied Orientalistics at the University of Heidelberg's Collegium Sapientiae and became teacher at the Dionysianum.

He followed humanist Thomas Erastus to Basel and continued his study tour in Breslau, Vienna and Prague.

Christmann joined the Casimirianum faculty in 1582 and dedicated his Arabic language grammar, Alphabetum arabicum, to his colleagues there.

A De revolutionibus manuscript of Nicolaus Copernicus passed[2] via Rheticus to others and was marked on 19 December 1603 by Christmann with Nicolai Copernick Canonici Varmiensis in Borussia Germaniae mathematici … ("of Canon Nicolaus Copernick from Warmia in Prussia of Germany, of the mathematician …").