Fakhr-al-Din was the first modern Lebanese, Bashir was the second. Anecdotes extolling his equity, sternness, wisdom and ability are still told and retold around fireplaces.
In 1840 another Shihab named Bashir, who had taken part in the rising of the Lebanese against Ibrahim Pasha when he tried to disarm and overtax them, and who had co- operated with the Ottomans and the British in expelling him, was appointed governor of Lebanon. The Ottomans were then carrying out a policy of centralization and Ottomaniza- tion and became more than ever convinced that the only way of keeping the mountain under control was to sow the seeds of discord and stir up hatred between Christians and Druzes. The civil strife thus engendered began in 1841 and culminated in the massacre of an estimated 11,000 Christians in i860, with an additional 4000 perishing of destitution. This massacre brought about European inter- vention, culminating in the occupation of Lebanon by a French army. Further European influences followed, bringing with them the fresh breeze of modern civiliza- tion.
The first introduction of Western culture to Lebanon, however, must be dated to 1584, when Pope Gregory XIII founded in Rome a seminary to train Maronite students for clerical careers. This unique educational institution en- abled the brightest Christian youths to fit themselves either to return to their homeland to occupy high ecclesiastical positions or to remain in Rome to teach and write. Gradu- ates included teachers of Syriac and Arabic, compilers and translators of the Bible and distinguished scholars like al- Samani (Assemani, 1687-1768), to whose efforts the Vatican library owes many of the finest manuscripts in its oriental collection. The researches of al-Samani on these manu- scripts in Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, Ethiopic and Armenian, for the sake of which he undertook two trips to the East, were embodied in his voluminous Bibliotheca Orientalis, still a major source of information on the churches
