The Almagest: one book, four cities, a thousand years
Ptolemy’s astronomy moved through Arabic and Latin translations. A manuscript from Zaragoza marks one stop on a journey spanning more than a thousand years.
What the Almagest contains
Ptolemy composed the Mathematical Syntaxis, known as the Almagest, in second-century Alexandria. The Heiberg critical text reprinted by Cambridge presents its observational and mathematical foundations and its computational tables. Cambridge University Press ↗
Into Arabic
Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus documents a direct Greek-to-Arabic translation by al-Hajjaj in 827 to 828 CE under Abbasid patronage, and lists the surviving witnesses, including Leiden Or. 680 and British Library Add MS 7474. Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus / Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities ↗
Into Latin
The same database records Gerard of Cremona's Arabic-to-Latin translation at Toledo between about 1140 and 1175, using the two main Arabic versions available to him. A 1175 colophon proves the translation existed by that year, which is not the same as saying it was completed then. Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus / Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities ↗
A dated copy
The University of Pennsylvania's LJS 268 is an Arabic Almagest in the Ishaq ibn Hunayn translation revised by Thabit ibn Qurra, copied in Saragossa in 1381 with a named scribe and patron. It is a reception witness centuries after the ninth-century translation. University of Pennsylvania Kislak Center ↗
What date does a manuscript photo show?
The digitized British Library codex preserves Books I to VI of al-Hajjaj's version. Translation event, manuscript copy, and original composition are three dates on this journey. Which one does a photograph of a page show you? Qatar Digital Library / British Library ↗