Constantine the African (Latin: Constantinus Africanus) (1017, Kairouan – 1087, Monte Cassino) was a Tunisian doctor of the eleventh century. The first part of his life was spent in Tunisia and the rest in Italy. In Salerno, Italy, he became a professor of medicine and his work attracted widespread attention. A few years later Constantine became a Benedictine monk, living the last two decades of his life in the Monte Cassino monastery.
It was in Italy where Constantine complied his vast opus, mostly composed of translations from Arabic sources. He translated into Latin books of the great masters of Arabic medicine: Razes Ali Ibn Massaouia Baghdad, Ibn Imran, Ibn Suleiman, and Ibn Al-Jazzar. These translations are housed today in libraries in Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, and England. They were used as textbooks from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century.
Read more about Constantine The African: The Historians of Constantine, Constantine Emigration To Italy, Constantine Scientific Production, Editions of Constantine's Works, The Legend of Constantine
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“All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.”
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