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In On Both Sides of the Strait of Gibraltar Julio Samsó studies the history of medieval astronomy in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), the Maghrib and the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. He proves that the Arabic, Latin, Hebrew, Castilian and Catalan sources belong to the same tradition whose origin can be dated in the 11th century due to the changes in Ptolemy’s astronomical theory introduced by the Toledan astronomer Ibn al-Zarqālluh/Azarquiel. The book also analyses the role of al-Andalus and the Iberian Peninsula in the transmission of Islamic astronomy to Europe and justifies the fact that Eastern Islamic works published after ca. 950 CE were not accessible to medieval European scholars because they had not reached al-Andalus.
The Duke and the Stars explores science and medicine as studied and practiced in fifteenth-century Italy, including how astrology was taught in relation to astronomy. It illustrates how the “predictive art” of astrology was often a critical, secretive source of information for Italian Renaissance rulers, particularly in times of crisis.
This book explores the notebooks of S. Belle, an astrologer who lived in late fifteenth-century France, as a case study of late medieval astrological practice. These notebooks combine astrological doctrine, a large collection of horoscopes, an almanac, and three complete judgements of nativities. By studying Belle’s methods, processes of learning, and practices, this book contributes to a better understanding of the internal architecture of astrology in the pre-modern world; this includes its techniques, methodologies, goals, transmission, and development throughout history. It offers an internalist view of the practice of astrology, as a counterpart to the existing research into astrology’s social and cultural impact.
In Apocalyptic Cartography: Thematic Maps and the End of the World in a Fifteenth-Century Manuscript, Chet Van Duzer and Ilya Dines analyse Huntington Library HM 83, an unstudied manuscript produced in Lübeck, Germany. The manuscript contains a rich collection of world maps produced by an anonymous but strikingly original cartographer. These include one of the earliest programs of thematic maps, and a remarkable series of maps that illustrate the transformations that the world was supposed to undergo during the Apocalypse. The authors supply detailed discussion of the maps and transcriptions and translations of the Latin texts that explain the maps. Copies of the maps in a fifteenth-century manuscript in Wolfenbüttel prove that this unusual work did circulate. A brief article about this book on the website of National Geographic can be found here.
The most learned of the Latin Fathers, Saint Jerome had an eventful life, spending time as a hermit, becoming a priest, serving as secretary to Pope Damasus I and later establishing a monastery at Bethlehem. His most ambitious achievement was his Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, based on a Hebrew version, rather than the Septuagint. He believed that mainstream Rabbinical Judaism had rejected the Septuagint as invalid scriptural texts, due to Hellenistic mistranslations. Jerome’s numerous biblical, ascetical, monastic and theological works went on to have a profound influence in the early Middle Ages. Delphi’s Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the an...
The present volume offers a critical edition of the Hebrew texts, accompanied by English translation and commentary of Reshit Ḥokhmah (Beginning of Wisdom) and Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot (Judgments of the Zodiacal Signs) by Abraham Ibn Ezra (ca. 1089–ca. 1161). The first, the summa and by far the longest of his astrological works, the target of the most cross-references from the rest of that corpus and the most influential, enjoyed the widest circulation among Jews in the Middle Ages and after. The second, by contrast, is the most obscure. It is never referred to elsewhere by its author and is the only work for which Ibn Ezra’s authorship must be substantiated. Reshit Ḥokhmah and Mishpe...
This collection of Charles Burnett's articles on the transmission of Arabic learning to Europe concentrates on the identity of the Latin translators and the context in which they were working. The articles are arranged in roughly chronological order, beginning with the earliest known translations from Arabic at the end of the 10th century, progressing through 11th-century translations made in Southern Italy, translators working in Sicily and the Principality of Antioch at the beginning of the 12th century, the first of the 12th-century Iberian translators, the beginnings and development of 'professional' translation activity in Toledo, and the transfer of this activity from Toledo to Frederick II's entourage in the 13th century. Most of the articles include editions of texts that either illustrate the style and character of the translator or provide the source material for his biobibliography.
Scientific Instruments between East and West is a collection of essays on aspects of the transmission of knowledge about scientific instruments and the trade in such instruments between the Eastern and Western worlds, particularly from Europe to the Ottoman Empire. The contributors, from a variety of countries, draw on original Arabic and Ottoman Turkish manuscripts and other archival sources and publications dating from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries not previously studied for their relevance to the history of scientific instruments. This little-studied topic in the history of science was the subject of the 35th Scientific Instrument Symposium held in Istanbul in September 2016, where the original versions of these essays were delivered. Contributors are Mahdi Abdeljaouad, Pierre Ageron, Hamid Bohloul, Patrice Bret, Gaye Danışan, Feza Günergun, Meltem Kocaman, Richard L. Kremer, Janet Laidla, Panagiotis Lazos, David Pantalony, Atilla Polat, Bernd Scholze, Konstantinos Skordoulis, Seyyed Hadi Tabatabaei, Anthony Turner, Hasan Umut, and George Vlahakis. See inside the book here.
Philosophy in the Islamic World is a comprehensive and unprecedented four-volume reference work devoted to the history of philosophy in the realms of Islam, from its beginnings in the eighth century AD down to modern times. In the period covered by this second volume (eleventh and twelfth centuries). Both major and minor figures of the period are covered, giving details of biography and doctrine, as well as detailed lists and summaries of each author’s works. This is the English version of the relevant volume of the Ueberweg, the most authoritative German reference work on the history of philosophy ( Philosophie in der Islamischen Welt Band II: 11.–12. Jahrhundert. Zentrale und östliche Gebiete , Basel: Schwabe, 2021). Contributors Peter Adamson, Amos Bertolacci, Hans Daiber, Frank Griffel, Dimitri Gutas, Hermann Landolt, Wilferd Madelung, Jon McGinnis, Ahmed H. al-Rahim, David C. Reisman, Ulrich Rudolph, Tony Street, Johannes Thomann, and Renate Würsch.