Latin Translations of The 12th Century - Translators in Italy

Translators in Italy

Just before the burst of translations in the 12th century, Constantine the African, a Christian from Carthage who studied medicine in Egypt and ultimately became a monk at the monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy, translated medical works from Arabic. Constantine's many translations included Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi's medical encyclopedia The Complete Book of the Medical Art (as Liber pantegni), the ancient medicine of Hippocrates and Galen as adapted by Arabic physicians, and the Isagoge ad Tegni Galeni by Hunayn ibn Ishaq (Johannitius) and his nephew Hubaysh ibn al-Hasan. Other medical works he translated include Isaac Israeli ben Solomon's Liber febribus, Liber de dietis universalibus et particularibus and Liber de urinis; Ishaq ibn Imran's psychological work al-Maqala fi al-Malikhukiya as De melancolia; and Ibn Al-Jazzar's De Gradibus, Viaticum, Liber de stomacho, De elephantiasi, De coitu and De oblivione.

Sicily had been part of the Byzantine Empire until 878, was under Muslim control from 878–1060, and came under Norman control between 1060 and 1090. As a consequence the Norman Kingdom of Sicily maintained a trilingual bureaucracy, which made it an ideal place for translations. Sicily also maintained relations with the Greek East, which allowed for exchange of ideas and manuscripts.

A copy of Ptolemy's Almagest was brought back to Sicily by Henry Aristippus, as a gift from the Emperor to King William I. Aristippus, himself, translated Plato's Meno and Phaedo into Latin, but it was left to an anonymous student at Salerno to travel to Sicily and translate the Almagest, as well as several works by Euclid from Greek to Latin. Although the Sicilians generally translated directly from the Greek, when Greek texts were not available, they would translate from Arabic. Admiral Eugene of Sicily translated Ptolemy's Optics into Latin, drawing on his knowledge of all three languages in the task. Accursius of Pistoja's translations included the works of Galen and Hunayn ibn Ishaq. Gerard de Sabloneta translated Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine and al-Razi's Almansor. Fibonacci presented the first complete European account of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system from Arabic sources in his Liber Abaci (1202). The Aphorismi by Masawaiyh (Mesue) was translated by an anonymous translator in late 11th or early 12th century Italy.

James of Venice, who probably spent some years in Constantinople, translated Aristotle's Posterior Analytics from Greek into Latin in the mid-12th century, thus making the complete Aristotelian logical corpus, the Organon, available in Latin for the first time.

In 13th century Padua, Bonacosa translated Averroes' medical work Kitab al-Kulliyyat as Colliget, and John of Capua translated the Kitab al-Taysir by Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) as Theisir. In 13th century Sicily, Faraj ben Salem translated Rhazes' al-Hawi as Continens as well as Ibn Butlan's Tacuinum sanitatis. Also in 13th century Italy, Simon of Genoa and Abraham Tortuensis translated Abulcasis' Al-Tasrif as Liber servitoris, Alcoati's Congregatio sive liber de oculis, and the Liber de simplicibus medicinis by a pseudo-Serapion