MARRACCI, Ludovico, a learned Italian, who was born at Lucca, in Tuscany, in 1612. After having finished his juvenile studies, he entered into the Congregation of regular clerks of the Mother of God, and early distinguished himself by his learning and merit. He taught rhetoric for seven years, and passed through several offices of his order. He applied himself principally to the study of languages, and attained, by his own exertions, a knowledge of the Greek, the Hebrew, the Syriac, the Chaldaic, and the Arabic, which last he taught for some time at Rome, by the order of Pope Alexander VII. Pope Innocent XI. chose him as his confessor, placed great confidence in him, and would have advanced him to ecclesiastical dignities if Marracci had not opposed it. Marracci died at Rome in 1700, aged eighty-seven. He was the author of several pieces in Italian; but the great work upon which his reputation chiefly rests, is his edition of the Koran, in the original Arabic, with a Latin version, under the title of Aleorani Textus unicus ex correctionibus Arabum exemplaribus summa fide atque pulcherrimis characteribus descriptus, Padua, 1698, in two vols. folio; the first of which contains the Prodromus, and the second the Koran, with critical and grammatical notes, which are highly esteemed. This edition is still the best we have of the sacred book of the Moslems. The version of the Koran by Marracci, with notes and observations by himself and others, and a synopsis of the Mahomedan religion, by way of introduction, was published by Heineccius, at Leipzig, 1721, in 8vo. Marracci had also a hand in the Biblia Sacra Arabica sacre Congregationis de Propaganda Fide jussu edita, ad usum Ecclesiarum Orientalium. Rome, 1671, in 3 vols. folio.