| From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 29-31 |
|
Courtesy of 
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Alfonso X
Julio Samsó
Alternate
names
Alfonso el Sabio
Alfonso the Learned
Alfonso
the Wise
Died Castile, (Spain),
1284
King
Alfonso X reigned from 1252 until 1284. He was a patron of literature and
learning and made a great effort to recover Arabic and, very especially, Andalusian
astronomical materials by translating them into Spanish, thus becoming a pioneer
in the use of the vernacular as a scientific language. Later, probably coinciding
with the period (1256–1275) in which he aspired to become the Emperor of Germany,
he had some of these works retranslated into Latin. The highest expression
of this cultural policy can be found in his Alfonsine Tables, in which
we find an aspiration to universality very much in keeping with a project
of producing a set of “imperial” astronomical tables.
His collaborators were a Muslim convert to Christianity (Bernardo el
Arábigo), and eight Christians, of whom four were Spaniards (Fernando de Toledo,
Garci Pérez, Guillén Arremón d'Aspa, and Juan d'Aspa), and four Italians (John
of Cremona, John
of Messina, Petrus de Regio, and Egidius Tebaldi of Parma). The Italian
group seems to have been involved mainly with the retranslations into Latin.
To these one should add a very important group of five Jews (Yehudah ben Mosheh,
Isaac ibn Sid called Rabiçag, Abraham
Alfaquín, Samuel ha‐Leví, and a certain Mosheh). Two (Yehudah and Rabiçag)
take pride of place due to the number and importance of the works they wrote;
in particular, they were the authors of the Alfonsine Tables. Of these
two, only Yehudah was a translator, while Rabiçag wrote original works and
built scientific instruments. Alfonso failed in his attempt to persuade a
Muslim scientist, Muḥammad al‐Riqūṭī,
to join his team; they probably met on the king's visit to Murcia in 1271.
Alfonsine
translations are based on Arabic works that had not been previously translated
into Latin. It is conceivable that these sources were found in libraries that
came under Christian control as a result of the conquests of Cordova (1236)
and Seville (1248) by Alfonso's father king Fernando III. Some of these translations
preserve Andalusian astronomical works that would have been lost otherwise;
this is the case, for example, of the Libro de las Cruzes (Book of
crosses), a late Latin astrological handbook based on a versified Arabic version
that had been written in the first half of the 9th century and subsequently
revised by a certain ʿUbayd Allāh in the
11th century. Other works that are only known through Alfonso's translations
are the Lapidario (a book on the magical applications of stones) written
by the otherwise unknown author of Abolays, the two books on the construction
of equatoria written by Ibn al‐Samḥ
(died: 1035) and Zarqālī (died: 1100), ʿAlī
ibn Khalaf 's book on the use of the plate for
all latitudes (Lámina Universal, Toledo, 11th century), and Zarqālī's
treatise on the construction of the armillary sphere.
King Alfonso seems to have devised a well‐structured project
for producing two collections of translations and original works. The first
collection was devoted to magic and contained the Picatrix (only the
Latin text is extant), the series of lapidaries, and the Libro de la mágica
de los signos. The second was an astronomical and astrological collection
and in it we find the well‐known Libros del Saber de Astronomía,
Ibn al‐Haytham's Configuration of the Universe,
Battānī's Canons (Instructions
for the use of his tables), the treatise on the use of the Cuadrante sennero
(sine quadrant?), the Alfonsine Tables, Ptolemy's
Quadripartitum with the commentary by ʿAlī ibn Ridwān,
the Libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas (Kitāb
al‐Bāriʿ fī
aḥkām al‐nujūm) by ʿAlī ibn Abī al‐Rijāl, and the anonymous Libro
de las Cruzes.
The first book of the Libros del Saber de Astronomía (Ochava
Espera) is a treatise on uranography partially based on Ṣūfī. The rest of the collection
is composed of treatises on astronomical instruments that are mainly analogical
calculators (celestial sphere, spherical and plane astrolabe, saphea, and
plate for all latitudes) whose main purpose is to provide graphic solutions
for problems of spherical astronomy and astrology that can be applied to the
casting of a horoscope. The purpose of the rest of the instruments (quadrant
of the type called vetus, sundial, clepsydras) is to determine the
time, something which is also needed to cast the horoscope. The king wished
to have a treatise on the construction and another one on the use of each
of these instruments. If an adequate Arabic source was available, Alfonso
ordered its translation. Otherwise, an original treatise was written, usually
by Rabiçag. For obvious reasons, most of the Alfonsine works that are original
are concerned with the construction of instruments, for such texts are more
difficult to find than treatises on their use.
We
also find in the Libros the two treatises on equatoria, instruments
whose purpose is to provide approximate calculations of planetary longitudes
using Ptolemaic planetary models drawn to scale that allow a graphical solution
of a problem that is, again, essential for casting a horoscope. Evidently,
Alfonso's tabular works (Zarqālī's Almanach, Battānī's
Canons, and the Alfonsine Tables) have exactly the same object.
A
last group of Alfonsine works comprises works on judicial astrology (Quadripartitum,
Libro de las Cruzes, Libro conplido), which allow the reader
to interpret the horoscope and predict the future as well as works on magic
whose purpose is to fabricate talismans in propitious astrological conditions
in order to modify this same future. When seen from the point of view of a
king who was extremely interested in both astrology and magic, his astronomical,
astrological, and magical works form an impressive unit that seems to be the
result of a well‐designed plan. Only two works fall outside this frame;
one of them is the aforementioned Ochava Espera that contains, apart
from a description of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations, enough connections
with the lapidaries and other magical texts to consider it as an exception.
The second is the translation of Ibn al‐Haytham's Cosmography,
which corresponds to a type of theoretical interest not all that common in
the corpus of Alfonso X.
The
Alfonsine Tables represents Alfonso's most important astronomical work.
However, it poses numerous problems, the most obvious of which is the existence
of two different versions (one in Spanish, another in Latin). On the one hand,
we have the Spanish text of a set of canons without the corresponding collection
of numerical tables. These canons have a prologue in which it is said that
their authors are Yehudah ben Mosheh and Rabiçag; the text was written between
1263 and 1272; 200 years after the observations of Zarqālī, the
king had ordered the construction of the necessary astronomical instruments
to make observations in Toledo; and the two astronomers, following the royal
orders, made observations of the Sun, planetary conjunctions, and solar and
lunar eclipses. Unfortunately, it is difficult to check the veracity of these
assertions except for three lunar eclipses (one in 1265 and two in 1266) and
one solar (1263) eclipse, on which we have a report transmitted by Isaac Israeli
(circa 1310). The few numerical parameters mentioned in the canons
or in the rest of the Alfonsine works extant in Spanish derive from the Toledan
Tables or from the work of the Maghribī astronomer Ibn
Isḥāq (flourished: circa 1193–1222). On
the other hand, in the Latin tables one finds new parameters that might be
the result of the alleged Alfonsine observations.
In
about 1320, a new set of Alfonsine Tables appeared containing numerical
tables with titles in Latin but without the canons that could be attributed
to the Alfonsine circle. Many authors from various parts of Europe (beginning
with the Parisian group of John
of Saxony, John
of Murs, and John
of Lignères) wrote original canons allowing the use of the numerical
tables. The tables were enormously successful and became standard in Late
Medieval and Early Renaissance Europe until 1551, when Erasmus
Reinhold published the Prutenic Tables. Nicolaus
Copernicus used parameters derived from the Alfonsine Tables
in his Commentariolus, and the Alfonsine tropical year of 365 days,
5 hours, 49 minutes, and almost 16 seconds was the mean tropical year used
in the De revolutionibus and became the basis for the Gregorian reform.
The total
lack of information about the tables between circa 1272 and circa
1320, and their complicated textual history between the 14th and 16th centuries,
when every version or adaptation of this work added new tables to the original
corpus, has recently led to a number of different opinions among historians.
At least one (Poulle) has denied any relation between the Latin tables and
the work of Alfonso X. Others (North, Goldstein, Chabás, Mancha, and Samsó)
have discussed this point and argued in favor of the presence of materials
in the Latin tables that have a clear relation to others attested in the undisputed
Spanish works of Alfonso X. In the opinion of this author, Yehudah ben Mosheh
and Rabiçag wrote the Spanish canons under the influence of Zarqālī
and the Toledan Tables. Later they began a new set of tables following
Battānī's tradition. In this second set, the language used was Latin,
reflecting the imperial aspirations of King Alfonso. This is not the interpretation
adopted by Chabás and Goldstein in a recent book: they believe that the revision
was made in Paris, on the basis of the Alfonsine materials mainly represented
by the Castilian canons. Whatever the truth, it seems a fact that the Alfonsine
Tables are the result of the work of the Alfonsine collaborators and that
they mark the starting point of an original European astronomy that was still
strongly influenced by an Arabic tradition.
Selected References
Alfonso el Sabio (1961). Libro de
las Cruzes, edited by Lloyd
A. Kasten and Lawrence B. Kiddle.
Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Cientifícas.
——— (1999). Libros
del saber de astronomía del rey Alfonso X el Sabio. 2 Vols.
Barcelona: Planeta DeAgostini.
(A facsimile of the royal manuscript Libros
del saber de astronomía.)
Ballesteros, Antonio
(1963). Alfonso X el Sabio. Barcelona: Salvat.
(The standard biography of Alfonso X. Reprinted with important
indexes missing in the original publication, Barcelona: El Albir,
1984.)
Bossong, Georg (1978). Los canones de
Albateni. Tubingen: Niemeyer.
Chabás, José
(1998). “Astronomy in Salamanca in the Mid‐fifteenth Century: The Tabulae resolutae.”
Journal for the History of Astronomy 29: 167–175.
——— (2000). “Astronomía
alfonsí en Morella a finales del siglo XIV.” Cronos 3: 381–391.
Chabás,
José and Bernard R. Goldstein (2003). The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Comes, Mercè (1991). Ecuatorios andalusíes:
Ibn al‐Samḥ, al‐Zarqālluh
y Abū‐l‐Ṣalt. Barcelona.
Comes, Mercè, Roser Puig,
and Samsó Julio (eds.) (1987). De
Astronomia Alphonsi Regis:
Proceedings of the Symposium on Alfonsine Astronomy
Held at Berkeley (August 1985) together with Other Papers on the Same Subject.
Barcelona: Instituto “Millás Vallicrosa” de Historia
de la Ciencia Árabe.
Comes, Mercè, Honorino Mielgo, and Julio Samsó (eds.) (1990).
“Ochava espera” y “Astrofísica”: Textos y estudios sobre
las fuentes árabes de la astronomía de Alfonso X. Barcelona: Instituto “Millás Vallicrosa” de Historia
de la Ciencia Árabe.
D'Agostino,
Alfonso (1979). Il “Libro sulla magia dei segni” ed altri studi di filologia
spagnola. Brescia.
——— (1992). Astromagia.
Naples: Liguori.
Diman,
Roderic C. and Lynn W. Winget
(eds.) (1980). Lapidario
and Libro de las
formas e ymagenes. Madison,
Wisconsin: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies.
Goldstein, Bernard
R. and José Chabás (2001). “The
Maximum Solar Equation in the Alfonsine Tables.”
Journal for the History of Astronomy 32: 345–348.
Goldstein, Bernard
R., José Chabás, and José Luis Mancha (1994). “Planetary and
Lunar Velocities in the Castilian Alfonsine Tables.”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 138: 61–95.
Hilty,
Gerold (1955). “El libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas.” Al‐Andalus 20: 1–74.
——— (ed.)
(1954). El libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas. Madrid:
Real Academia Española.
——— (2005).
El libro conplido em los Iudizios de las Estrellas. Partes 6a8.
Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo.
Kasten,
Lloyd A., John Nitti and W. Jonxis‐Henkemans
(1997).
The Electronic Texts and Concordances of the Prose Works of Alfonso X,
El Sabio. 7 pp. +1 CD‐ROM. Madison,
Wisconsin.
Millás Vallicrosa,
José María (1943–1950). Estudios sobre Azarquiel. Madrid‐Granada.
——— (1956). “Una
nueva obra astronómica alfonsí: El Tratado del cuadrante ‘sennero'.” Al‐Andalus
21: 59–92.
North, J. D. (1996). “Just Whose
Were the Alfonsine Tables?” In From Baghdad to
Barcelona: Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences in Honour of Prof. Juan Vernet, edited by Josep Casulleras and Julio Samsó. Vol. 1, pp. 453–475. Barcelona: Instituto “Millás Vallicrosa”
de Historia de la Ciencia Árabe.
Pingree, David
(1986). Picatrix: The Latin Version of
the Ghāyat al‐hakīm.
London: Warburg Institute.
Poulle, Emmanuel
(1984). Les tables alphonsines avec les canons de Jean de Saxe. Paris:
C.N.R.S.
——— (1988). “The Alfonsine Tables and Alfonso X of Castille.”
Journal for the History of Astronomy 19: 97–113.
Procter, Evelyn S. (1951). Alfonso
X of Castile, Patron of Literature and Learning. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rico y Sinobas,
Manuel (1863–1867). Libros del saber de astronomía del rey D. Alfonso X
de Castilla, copilados, anotados y comentados por Don Manuel Rico y Sinobas.
5
Vols. Madrid. Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas
Físìcas y Naturels (This complete
edition [which includes the text of the Spanish canons of the Alfonsine Tables] is of poor quality.)
Romano, David
(1971). “Le opere scientifiche di Alfonso X e l'intervento degli ebrei.” In
Oriente e Occidente nel Medioevo: Filosofia e Scienze. Convegno Internazionale
9–15 aprile 1969, pp. 677–711. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Reprinted
in De historia judía hispánica, Barcelona, 1991, pp. 147–181.
Roth, Norman (1990). “Jewish Collaborators
in Alfonso's Scientific Work.” In Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned
of Castile and His Thirteenth‐Century Renaissance, edited by Robert
I. Burns, pp. 59–71 and 223–230. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Samsó, Julio
(1994). Islamic Astronomy and Medieval Spain. Aldershot: Variorum.
Swerdlow, Noel
M. (1974). “The Origin of the Gregorian Civil Calendar.” Journal for the
History of Astronomy 5: 48–49.
——— (1977). “A Summary of the Derivation
of the Parameters in the Commentariolus from the
Alfonsine Tables with an Appendix on the Length
of the Tropical Year in Abraham Zacuto's Almanach Perpetuum.” Centaurus 21: 201–213.
Vernet, Juan
(1978). “Un texto árabe de la corte de Alfonso X el Sabio.” Al‐Andalus 43: 405–421.
——— (ed.)
(1981). Textos y estudios sobre astronomía española en el siglo de Alfonso
X. Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas; Universidad
Autónoma de Barcelona.
——— (ed.)
(1983). Nuevos estudios sobre astronomía española en el siglo de Alfonso
X. Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientifícas.
Viladrich, Mercè (1982). “On the Sources of the Alphonsine
Treatise Dealing with the Construction of the Plane Astrolabe.” Journal
for the History of Arabic Science 6: 167–171.