The Toledan Tables

The Toledan Tables
Author: Fritz Saaby Pedersen
Publisher: Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2002
Genre: Astronomie
ISBN: 9788778762672

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.

On Both Sides of the Strait of Gibraltar

On Both Sides of the Strait of Gibraltar
Author: Julio Samsó
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 1027
Release: 2020-09-25
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 9004436588

In On Both Sides of the Strait of Gibraltar Julio Samsó shows that astronomical sources, written in al-Andalus, the Maghrib and the Iberian Peninsula, belong to the same tradition and emphasizes the role of al-Andalus and the Iberian Peninsula in the transmission of Islamic astronomy to medieval Europe.

The Astronomical Tables of Giovanni Bianchini

The Astronomical Tables of Giovanni Bianchini
Author: José Chabás
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2009
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9004176152

This book describes and analyses, for the first time, the astronomical tables of Giovanni Bianchini of Ferrara (d. after 1469), explains their context, inserts them into an astronomical tradition that began in Toledo, and addresses their diffusion.

Essays on Medieval Computational Astronomy

Essays on Medieval Computational Astronomy
Author: José Chabás Bergón
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2014-11-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004281754

During the Middle Ages and early modern times tables were a most successful and economical way to present mathematical procedures and astronomical models and to facilitate computations. Before the sixteenth century astronomical models introduced by Ptolemy in Antiquity were rarely challenged, and innovation consisted in elaborating new methods for calculating planetary positions and other celestial phenomena. Essays on Medieval Computational Astronomy includes twelve articles that focus on astronomical tables, offering many examples where the meaning and purpose of such tables has been determined by careful analysis. In evaluating the work of medieval scholars we are mindful of the importance of applying criteria consistent with their own time, which may be different from those appropriate for other periods.

A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables

A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables
Author: Edward Stewart Kennedy
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
Total Pages: 82
Release: 1956
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780871694621

The source material for the study of medieval oriental astronomy consists of Byzantine Greek, Sanscrit, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish astronomical and astrological manuscripts. If one desires to build up a detailed picture of Islamic astronomy, one can choose material from these available manuscripts. Of these manuscripts it is possible to isolate a group of works, the "zijes". A "zij" consists of the numerical tables and accompanying explanation sufficient to measure time and to compute planetary and stellar positions, appearance, and eclipses. This paper is a survey of the number, distribution, contents, and relations between "zijes" written in Arabic or Persian during the period from the 8th through the 15th centuries. Illustrations. Oversize.

The Role of the Arab-Islamic World in the Rise of the West

The Role of the Arab-Islamic World in the Rise of the West
Author: Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2012-08-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230393217

This book takes a fascinating look at the role of the Arab-Islamic world in the rise of the West. It examines the cultural transmission of ideas and institutions in a number of key areas, including science, philosophy, humanism, law, finance, commerce, as well as the Arab-Islamic world's overall impact on the Reformation and the Renaissance.

Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Introductions to Astrology

Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Introductions to Astrology
Author: Shlomo Sela
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 836
Release: 2017-05-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004342281

The present volume offers a critical edition of the Hebrew texts, accompanied by English translation and commentary of Reshit Ḥokhmah (Beginning of Wisdom) and Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot (Judgments of the Zodiacal Signs) by Abraham Ibn Ezra (ca. 1089–ca. 1161). The first, the summa and by far the longest of his astrological works, the target of the most cross-references from the rest of that corpus and the most influential, enjoyed the widest circulation among Jews in the Middle Ages and after. The second, by contrast, is the most obscure. It is never referred to elsewhere by its author and is the only work for which Ibn Ezra’s authorship must be substantiated. Reshit Ḥokhmah and Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot were written in order to explain concepts common to the various branches of astrology that Ibn Ezra addressed elsewhere and to elucidate the worldview that underlies astrology. These two treatises are the richest and most varied with regard to the astrological information they present. Reshit Ḥokhmah and Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot also exemplify the close collaboration between astronomy and astrology in medieval science and are the two components of Ibn Ezra’s astrological corpus with the most extensive, comprehensive, and significant astronomical content. "A critical edition with English translation of Reshit Ḥokhmah was published in 1998 by Epstein. Sela has not only aspired to improve it but also supplied a commentary to render the text more comprehensible. Sela’s mission is successfully accomplished for both treatises. This multifarious book is another important contribution to a deeper understanding of the life and work of one of the most important medieval Jewish polymaths." - Ilana Wartenberg, Universität Bern, in: Journal for the History of Astronomy 50.1 (2019)

Astronomy and Astrology in al-Andalus and the Maghrib

Astronomy and Astrology in al-Andalus and the Maghrib
Author: Julio Samsó
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2023-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000951553

This new volume of papers by Julio Samsó deals with the development of astronomy and astrology in al-Andalus and the Maghrib between the 10th and the 19th centuries. Opening with a survey of the social history of the exact sciences in al-Andalus, the book then looks at astronomical tables: the first stages of the introduction of al-Khwarizmi's and al-Battani's tables through the school of Maslama al-Majriti, the development of Ibn al-Zarqalluh/ Azarquiel's theories in Maghribi zijes (Ibn al-Banna' and Ibn Azzuz) and the abandonment of this tradition towards the end of the 14th century. From this period onwards new Eastern zijes (Muhyi al-Din al-Maghribi, Ibn al-Shatir, Ulugh Beg) are introduced in the Maghrib and, towards the beginning of the 17th century, a translation of Abraham Zacut and José Vizinho's Almanach Perpetuum (end of the 15th century) becomes well known in the whole Islamic world, from Morocco to the Yemen. As well as zijes themselves, the author also deals with theoretical astronomy (the use of an elliptical deferent for Mercury in Ibn al-Zarqalluh's equatorium and the criticisms of Ibn al-Haytham and Jabir b. Aflah on Ptolemy's determination of the parameters of the same planet), and with the use of zijes for the calculation of horoscopes, and an experimental astrological method for the correction of mean motion planetary tables (Ibn Azzuz).