The Toledan Tables, or Tables of Toledo, were astronomical tables which were used to predict the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets relative to the fixed stars. They were compiled in around 1080 by a group of Toledan astronomers and were the result of adjusting preexisting tables for the latitude of Toledo, Spain, for which they are named.
The Tables were partly based on the work of al-Zarqali (known to the West as Arzachel), an Arab mathematician, astronomer and astrologer who flourished in Cordoba, al-Andalus. Gerard of Cremona (1114–1187) edited for Latin readers the Tables of Toledo, the most accurate compilation seen in Europe at the time. During the mid-thirteenth century, Campanus of Novara constructed tables for the meridian of Novara from the Toledan tables of Arzachel. The Toledan Tables were superseded by the Alfonsine tables which were produced in the 1270s.
Famous quotes containing the word tables:
“O these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every ticklish reader! Set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity
And daughters of the game.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)