Islamic Astronomy and Medieval Spain

Islamic Astronomy and Medieval Spain
Author: Julio Samsó
Publisher: Variorum Publishing
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1994
Genre: Science
ISBN:

This volume focuses on the development of astronomy in al-Andalus, Islamic Spain, relating it to the astronomical science of the Latin West. Both Islamic and European science survived the Latin astronomical tradition after the Arab conquest of 711 and then the influence of Arabic science in Christian Spain.

The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo

The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo
Author: José Chabás
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401702136

The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo is for historians working in the fields of astronomy, science, the Middle Ages, Spanish and other Romance languages. It is also of interest to scholars interested in the history of Castile, in Castilian-French relations in the Middle Ages and in the history of patronage. It explores the Castilian canons of the Alfonsine Tables and offers a study of their context, language, astronomical content, and diffusion. The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo is unique in that it: includes an edition of a crucial text in history of science; provides an explanation of astronomy as it was practiced in the Middle Ages; presents abundant material on early scientific language in Castilian; presents new material on the diffusion of Alfonsine astronomy in Europe; describes the role of royal patronage of science in a medieval context.

Astronomical Knowledge Transmission Through Illustrated Aratea Manuscripts

Astronomical Knowledge Transmission Through Illustrated Aratea Manuscripts
Author: Marion Dolan
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2017-08-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319567845

This carefully researched monograph is a historical investigation of the illustrated Aratea astronomical manuscript and its many interpretations over the centuries. Aratus' 270 B.C.E. Greek poem describing the constellations and astrological phenomena was translated and copied over 800 years into illuminated manuscripts that preserved and illustrated these ancient stories about the constellations. The Aratea survives in its entirety due to multiple translations from Greek to Latin and even to Arabic, with many illuminated versions being commissioned over the ages. The survey encompasses four interrelated disciplines: history of literature, history of myth, history of science, and history of art. Aratea manuscripts by their nature are a meeting place of these distinct branches, and the culling of information from historical literature and from the manuscripts themselves focuses on a wider, holistic view; a narrow approach could not provide a proper prospective. What is most essential to know about this work is that because of its successive incarnations it has survived and been reinterpreted through the centuries, which speaks to its importance in all of these disciplines. This book brings a better understanding of the history, changes and transmission of the original astronomical Phaenomena poem. Historians, art historians, astronomy lovers, and historians of astronomy will learn more specialized details concerning the Aratea and how the tradition survived from the Middle Ages. It is a credit to the poetry of Aratus and the later interpreters of the text that its pagan aspects were not edited nor removed, but respected and maintained in the exact same form despite the fact that all sixty Aratea manuscripts mentioned in this study were produced under the rule of Christianity.

Alfonso X of Castile, Patron of Literature and Learning

Alfonso X of Castile, Patron of Literature and Learning
Author: Evelyn Stefanos Procter
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 168
Release: 1980
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Alfonso X (1252-1284) was one of the outstanding royal patrons of the 13th century. The work done at his court included translations from the Arabic of treatises on astronomy, astrology, and magic and works of cooperative scholarship which appear to have been part of a scheme to provide standard reference works. Procter's five essays give an overview of Alfonso's role as a patron of learning.

Alfonso X, the Learned

Alfonso X, the Learned
Author: H. Salvador Mart Nez
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 612
Release: 2010
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9004181474

A truly groundbreaking book, presenting a portrait of Alfonso X, monarch and medieval intellectual "par excellence," and the extraordinary cultural history of Spain at that time.

Astronomy and Astrology in the Islamic World

Astronomy and Astrology in the Islamic World
Author: Stephen P. Blake
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2016-04-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0748649115

It was the astronomers and mathematicians of the Islamic world who provided the theories and concepts that paved the way from the geocentric theories of Claudius Ptolemy in the second century AD to the heliocentric breakthroughs of Nicholas Copernicus and Johannes Kepler in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Algebra, the Arabic numeral system, and trigonometry: all these and more originated in the Muslim East and undergirded an increasingly accurate and sophisticated understanding of the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets. This nontechnical overview of the Islamic advances in the heavenly sciences allows the general reader to appreciate (for the first time) the absolutely crucial role that Muslim scientists played in the overall development of astronomy and astrology in the Eurasian world.