Paulinus of St. Bartholomew

Paulinus of St. Bartholomew (b. at Hof am Leithaberge in Lower Austria, 25 April 1748; d. in Rome, 7 January 1806) was an Austrian Carmelite missionary and Orientalist of Croatian origin.

[12] He worked as a missionary in the Malabar region (modern day Kerala) and is credited with being the author of the first Sanskrit grammar to be published in Europe,[13] and for being one of the first Orientalists to remark upon the close relationship between Indian and European languages, followed by others such as William Jones and Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux.

In Rome, he came into contact with Stefano Borgia, Secretary of Propaganda Fide, antiquarian scholar and patron, who had set up in Velletri, his native city, the very well-endowed Museo Borgiano.

Borgia appointed him his private secretary and financed the publication of many volumes of indology, including the first European grammar of the Sanskrit language (Sidharubam seu Grammatica Samscrdamica), published in Rome in 1790.

Paulinus also wrote, in Italian, a long essay on India (Viaggio alle Indie Orientali) which was translated into the principal European languages.