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This book describes and analyses, for the first time, the astronomical tables of Giovanni Bianchini of Ferrara (d. after 1469), explains their context, inserts them into an astronomical tradition that began in Toledo, and addresses their diffusion.
This is a survey of the numerous astronomical tables compiled in the late Middle Ages, which represent a major intellectual enterprise. Such tables were often the best way available at the time for transmitting precise information to the reader.
Abraham Zacut (1452-1515) of Salamanca was an outstanding intellectual figure in the Spanish Jewish community on the eve of the expulsion in 1492. His scientific work began in the 1470s, & continued in exile, in Portugal, N. Africa, & ultimately in Jerusalem. This monograph focuses on some of his important contributions to astronomy, namely, those that appear in the book published in Leiria, Portugal, in 1496, generally known as the "Almanach Perpetuum"; this publication is to be distinguished from "ha-Hibbur ha-gadol" ("The Great Composition") that Zacut composed in Hebrew in 1478. Indeed, one of the findings in the course of research for this vol. is that these are distinct works. Bibliography. Charts & tables.
During the Middle Ages and early modern times tables were a most successful and economical way to present mathematical procedures and astronomical models and to facilitate computations. Before the sixteenth century astronomical models introduced by Ptolemy in Antiquity were rarely challenged, and innovation consisted in elaborating new methods for calculating planetary positions and other celestial phenomena. Essays on Medieval Computational Astronomy includes twelve articles that focus on astronomical tables, offering many examples where the meaning and purpose of such tables has been determined by careful analysis. In evaluating the work of medieval scholars we are mindful of the importance of applying criteria consistent with their own time, which may be different from those appropriate for other periods.