Translators On The Spanish Frontier
As early as the end of the 10th century, European scholars travelled to Spain to study. Most notable among these was Gerbert of Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II) who studied mathematics in the region of the Spanish March around Barcelona. Translations, however, did not begin in Spain until after 1085 when Toledo was reconquered by Christians. The early translators in Spain focused heavily on scientific works, especially mathematics and astronomy, with a second area of interest including the Qur'an and other Islamic texts. Spanish collections included many scholarly works written in Arabic, so translators worked almost exclusively from Arabic, rather than Greek texts, often in cooperation with a local speaker of Arabic.
One of the more important translation projects was sponsored by Peter the Venerable, the abbot of Cluny. In 1142 he called upon Robert of Ketton and Herman of Carinthia, Peter of Poitiers, and a Muslim known only as "Mohammed" to produce the first Latin translation of the Qur'an (the Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete).
Translations were produced throughout Spain and Provence. Plato of Tivoli worked in Catalonia, Herman of Carinthia in Northern Spain and across the Pyrenees in Languedoc, Hugh of Santalla in Aragon, Robert of Ketton in Navarre and Robert of Chester in Segovia. The most important center of translation was the great cathedral library of Toledo.
Plato of Tivoli's translations into Latin include al-Battani's astronomical and trigonometrical work De motu stellarum, Abraham bar Hiyya's Liber embadorum, Theodosius of Bithynia's Spherica, and Archimedes' Measurement of a Circle. Robert of Chester's translations into Latin included al-Khwarizmi's Algebra and astronomical tables (also containing trigonometric tables). Abraham of Tortosa's translations include Ibn Sarabi's (Serapion Junior) De Simplicibus and Abulcasis' Al-Tasrif as Liber Servitoris. In 1126, Muhammad al-Fazari's Great Sindhind (based on the Sanskrit works of Surya Siddhanta and Brahmagupta's Brahmasphutasiddhanta) was translated into Latin.
In addition to philosophical and scientific literature, the Jewish writer Petrus Alphonsi translated a collection of 33 tales from Arabic literature into Latin. Some of the tales he drew on were from the Panchatantra and Arabian Nights, such as the story cycle of "Sinbad the Sailor".
Read more about this topic: Latin Translations Of The 12th Century
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