Transmission of Knowledge and Dialogs
Aristotle rediscovered in the 12th c. Ancient texts plus new readers = ? Gerardo da Cremona Michael Scot Frederick II h p://www.youtube.com/watch? v=gwYQww1iix4 Ambi ons, ques ons, no ons
• Transmission • Tradi on • Ins tu ons: libraries, University, Church • Media: Manuscript book, memory, images, architecture, music • Men: rulers, scholars, clerics • Adapta ons, edi ons, commentaries, transla ons, annota ons
Some historical context
• The Reconquista (launched in the 10th c., reclaiming of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims who had ruled it for more than 300 years; fall of Granada 1492) • Chris an Hispanic control over Toledo (and Lisbon) by 1100 • a “work of co-penetra on and synthesis”, more than a crusade.
The “Andalus”
• Muslim Spain: interna onal trade, ar sanship, agriculture, literate rulers. • Intellectual life with universi es and libraries, secular • Access open for non-Muslims to important roles in the Kingdom (“minori es tax”): well established, highly cultured Jewish and Muslim communi es. • Toledo, Cordoba
972-3 Marble capital made for Caliph al- Hakim II's Royal Palace at Madinat al- Zahra near Córdoba. 1000s Spanish Islamic carved ivory box used for e.g. musk, camphor and ambergris.
Toledo a racted other first rate scholars from all over Europe including Adelard of Bath, Robert of Chester, Rudolf of Bruges and Hermann of Carinthia. By the middle of the thirteenth century, scholars such as these had translated the bulk of ancient science into La n. The wri ngs of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid and Hippocrates had been preserved in Arabic for hundreds of years. Muslim intellectual had also been wri ng commentaries and expanding on the Greek works for genera ons. Toledo represented the intellectual door through which this incredible storehouse of knowledge would become known to the West. Toledo Toledo taken by Alfonso VI of Leon (and El Cid) from the Muslims in the capital of Cas le
"The School of Toledo,” rose under the leadership of the French Archbishop Raymond who reigned from 1126 un l his death in 1152.
Archdeacon Dominic Gundisalvo undertook many transla ons and directed the Transla on Centre founded by Raymond.
Al-Kindi, 9th c, founder of Muslim philosophy:
Without the Greeks, it would have been impossible for us, despite all our zeal, during the whole of our life me, to assemble these principles of truth which form the basis of the final inferences of our research.
The Arab scholar’s method: first to record in complete quota ons all that the Ancients have said on the subject, secondly to complete what the Ancients have not fully expressed, and this according to the the usage of our Arabic language, the customs of our age, and our own ability. Some great thinkers and writers of the Arab philosophy movement (falsafah) and of Andalus’ Spain
• Ibn Gabirol/Avicebron, Jewish mys c, Spain: 1021-1058 • Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Persian; 980-1037, 450 trea ses... • Moses Maimonides of Cordoba, Spain, Morocco, Egypt: 1135-1204 • Ibn Rushd/Averroës, Spain: 1126-1298, commentator of Aristotle
Books kept, read, commented and annotated
Galen, Art of Healing, Anatomical Procedures Euclid, Elements of Geometry Ptolemy, Almagest Archimedes’ trea ses Aristotle: Metaphysics, Physics, On the Heavens, History of Animals, On Genera on and Corrup on, De Anima, Nicomachean Ethics, Poli cs
A transla on centre in Toledo Archedeacon Domingo Gundisalvo, also author of philosophical Aristotelian and geometry trea ses, a “Mozarab”. Called on Juan Avendeuth, a Jewish scholar, an authority on Arab literature and language. Avendeuth translated into Cas lian, Gundisalvo into La n: On the Soul RAYMUND OF TOLEDO ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO 1125-1152 From England: Robert of Chester Adelard of Bath Daniel Morley From Northern Italy: John of Brescia Plato of Tivoli Gerard of Cremona From Scotland... Michael Scot, in the 13th c.
... ATTTRACTING SCHOLARS Under Raymond's patronage, such transla ng giants as Gerard and John of Seville (a converted Jew) flourished and schools developed around them. These "schools" included scribal and linguis c assistants, appren ces, and Arabic manuscript hunters. Gerard of Cremona (c. 1114-1187) was the greatest and most prolific Arabic translator of his me. His La n transla ons of over 70 seminal works in the sciences introduced the advanced Greek and Arab world to an intellectually impoverished Europe during the Middle Ages. His transla ons are credited with providing the classical founda ons for the work of such thinkers as Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and Copernicus. the Arab physician Al- Razi Gerard of Cremona
Aristotle: Natural History, Book of Causes Ptolemy, Almagest Euclid, Elements of Geometry Al Khwarizmi, Algebra 24 medical texts
Ptolemy: Almagest Ptolemy, Almagest
The most important medieval La n transla on of the Almagest, which is found in many manuscripts, was made from the Arabic in Spain in 1175 by Gerard of Cremona, the most prolific of all medieval translators from Arabic into La n.
Book X Chapters 6-7, Ptolemy's descrip on of his kinema c model for the mo on of the superior planets--Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The separa on of the center of uniform mo on from the center of uniform distance of the center of the epicycle is explained, as well as the beginning of the deriva on of the elements of the model for Mars, through a lengthy itera ve computa on. The earth is at rest at (e) and the planets move uniformly with respect to a point (r) which is separated from the center of their spheres, (d). This device closely approximated the ellip cal orbit in which planets actually move. Nasir ad-Din at-Tusi was among the first of several Arabic astronomers of the late thirteenth century at the observatory of Maragha in Persia who modified Ptolemy's models based on mechanical principles, in order to preserve the uniform rota on of spheres. Tadhkira fi'ilm al'haya (Memoir on Astronomy). Euclid's Op cs is the earliest surviving work on geometrical op cs, and is generally found in Greek manuscripts along with elementary works on spherical astronomy. There were a number of medieval La n transla ons, which became of new importance in the fi eenth century for the theory of linear perspec ve. Michael Sco (1175-1232) Sco studied at Oxford, Paris and Toledo universi es. Paris: “Michael Mathema cus”, and doctor in theology. A “wizard” Sco had a very famous student: Leonardo Fibonacci, the author of “Liber abaci” (Book of the Abacus - 1202), the first European book to use “0” for zero. The book included the famous series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55.... known to us as the Fibonacci Sequence, where each number is the sum of the two previous numbers. In 1217, Sco translated “Liber astronomiae” (Book of Astronomy) by Alpetragius (Abu Ishaq, Nured-din al-Bitruji al-Ishbilt), the first work that discussed the astronomical system of Aristotle.
One of his most important transla ons was Aristotle’s De animalibus, before 1220, preserved in more than 60 medieval manuscripts.
Bologna in 1220 and maybe Salerno. Patronage of Emperor Frederick II, in Palermo, royal astrologer.
Transla on of the works of Aristotle. Also “Liber Introductorius sive Indicia Quaes onum,” for the use of young students, a trea se on physiognomy, en tled “Physiognomia” and “de Hominis Procrea one”, on human anatomy, physiology and reproduc on.
A trilogy about astrology, alchemy and the occult sciences —Liber introductorius, Liber par cularis and Physionomia (De secre s naturae)—, presented to Frederick in 1228, though not completed. Some years in Germany, England, apparently planning his return to his na ve Scotland.
While in England, Pope Honorius nominated him archbishop of Cashel in Ireland, Sco refused to take up the posi on. The legend of Michael Sco When he arrived at the Imperial court, chroniclers noted his unusual sense of dress.
“A public reputa on for performing miracles that would put any self-respec ng wonder working Rabbi to shame”.
Also reported to have been adept at inducing visions by a combina on of manipula on of light and sugges on – hypnosis?
Before Sco resigned his posi on, he predicted to the Emperor the me, place, and manner of his death; and the prophecy is said to have been exactly fulfilled in every par cular detail.
“That other there, his flanks extremely spare, Was Michael Sco , a man who certainly knew How the game of magic fraud was played.” (Dante, Inferno) and elsewhere...
The Norman court of Frederick II, 1194-1250, the young emperor of Germany, the Wonder of the World (Stupor Mundus), King of Jerusalem 1229 a er a truce with Al-Kamil, Sultan of Egypt, dreaming of unifying Italy and Germany, twice excommunicated... The Emerald Tablet The oldest documentable source for the text is the Kitab Sirr al-Asrar, a compendium of advice for rulers in Arabic which purports to be a le er from Aristotle to Alexander the Great. This work was translated into La n as Secretum Secretorum (The Secret of Secrets) by Johannes "Hispalensis" or Hispaniensis (John of Seville) ca. 1140 and by Philip of Tripoli c. 1243. The Tablet has also been found appended to manuscripts of the Kitab Ustuqus al-Uss al- Thani (Second Book of the Elements of Founda on) a ributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan, and the Kitab Sirr al-Khaliqa wa San`at al- Tabi`a ("Book of the Secret of Crea on and the Art of Nature"), dated between 650 and 830 AD. 1. It contains an accurate commentary that can't be doubted. 2. It states: What is the above is from the below and the below is from the above. The work of wonders is from one. 3. And all things sprang from this essence through a single projec on. How marvelous is its work! It is the principle [sic] part of the world and its custodian. 4. Its father is the sun and its mother is the moon. Thus the wind bore it within it and the earth nourished it. 5. Father of talismans and keeper of wonders. 6. Perfect in power that reveals the lights. 7. It is a fire that became our earth. Separate the earth from the fire and you shall adhere more to that which is subtle than that which is coarse, through care and wisdom. 8. It ascends from the earth to the heaven. It extracts the lights from the heights and descends to the earth containing the power of the above and the below for it is with the light of the lights. Therefore the darkness flees from it. 9. The greatest power overcomes everything that is subtle and it penetrates all that is coarse. 10. The forma on of the microcosm is in accordance with the forma on of the macrocosm. 11. The scholars made this their path. 12. This is why Thrice Hermes was exalted with