Enrico Cerulli

Enrico Cerulli
Born	February 15, 1898 Naples, Italy
Died	September 19, 1988
Occupation	writer, scholar, governor, diplomat
Ethnicity	Italian
Alma mater	University of Naples
Signature	[[File: Signature Enrico Cerulli (1917) |frameless|upright=0.72|alt=]]

Enrico Cerulli (February 15, 1898 - September 19, 1988) was an Italian scholar of Somali and Ethiopian studies, a governor and a diplomat.

Cerulli was born in Naples, Italy in 1898. He wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of Naples Federico II on the traditional law of the Somali. At the same time, he studied Ethio-Semitic languages under Francesco Gallina, and Arabic and Islamic studies under Carlo Alfonso Nallino and Giorgio Levi Della Vida at the Regio Istituto Orientale (later Istituto Universitario Orientale, today Università di Napoli "L'Orientale").

Cerulli is also renowned for his studies on the Latin and Old French translation of the Arabic Kitab al-Miraj, a famous Muslim book concerned with Muhammad's ascension into Heaven (known as the Mi'raj), following his miraculous one-night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem (the Isra). The book's Islamic depictions of Hell are believed by some scholars, including Cerulli, to have been a major influence on Dante's 14th century masterpiece, the Divine Comedy.