scholarly journals Advanced Arithmetic from Twelfth-Century al-Andalus, Surviving Only (and Anonymously) in Latin Translation?A Narrative that Was Never Told

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-61
Author(s):  
Jens Høyrup
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Latin Translation

Utopia’s Moorish Inspiration: Thomas More’s Reading of Ibn Ṭufayl

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Regnier
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Philosophical Novel ◽  
Ibn Tufayl

A promising but neglected precedent for Thomas More’s Utopia is to be found in Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān. This twelfth-century Andalusian philosophical novel describing the self-education and enlightenment of a feral child on an island, while certainly a precedent for the European Bildungsroman, also arguably qualifies as a utopian text. It is possible that More had access to Pico de la Mirandola’s Latin translation of Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān. This study consists of a review of historical and philological evidence that More may have read Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān and a comparative reading of More’s and Ṭufayl’s two famous works. I argue that there are good reasons to see in Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān a source for More’s Utopia and that in certain respects we can read More’s Utopia as a response to Ṭufayl’s novel. L’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān d’Ibn Ṭufayl consiste en un précédent incontournable mais négligé à l’Utopie de More. Ce récit philosophique andalou du douzième siècle décrivant l’auto-formation et l’éveil d’un enfant sauvage sur une île peut être considéré comme un texte utopique, bien qu’il soit certainement un précédent pour le Bildungsroman européen. Thomas More pourrait avoir lu l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān, puisqu’il a pu avoir accès à la traduction latine qu’en a fait Pic de la Miradolle. Cette étude examine les données historiques et philologiques permettant de poser que More a probablement lu cet ouvrage, et propose une lecture comparée de l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān et de l’Utopie de More. On y avance qu’il y a non seulement de bonnes raisons de considérer l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān d’Ibn Ṭufayl comme une source de l’Utopie de More, mais qu’il est aussi possible à certains égards de lire l’Utopie comme une réponse à l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān.

Ibn Gabirol, Solomon (1021/2–57/8)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel H. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
Duns Scotus ◽  
Muslim Spain ◽  
Critical Reflections

Ibn Gabirol was an outstanding exemplar of the Judaeo–Arabic symbiosis of medieval Muslim Spain, a poet as well as the author of prose works in both Hebrew and Arabic. His philosophical masterwork, the Mekor Hayyim (Fountain of Life), was well known to the Latin scholastics in its twelfth century Latin translation, the Fons Vitae. The work presents a Neoplatonic conception of reality, with a creator God at the apex. The universal hylomorphism that pervades the created order, both spiritual and corporeal, has divine will as the intermediary between God and creation, allowing Ibn Gabirol to avoid the rigidly determinist emanationism of his Greek predecessors. The Fons Vitae challenged such philosophers as Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus to critical reflections regarding individuation and personal immortality.

William of Auvergne (c.1180–1249)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven P. Marrone
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
The Third ◽  
Western European

Active in Paris during the third and fourth decades of the thirteenth century, when universities were emerging as centres of Western European intellectual life, William played a decisive role in the early development of high medieval philosophy. His writing reveals a familiarity with Aristotle, all of whose major works except the Metaphysics were readily available in Latin translation, and with the Islamic philosophers, most especially Avicenna but also Averroes, whose commentaries on Aristotle were just beginning to circulate. William looked back to the Neoplatonic traditions of the twelfth century, but he also looked ahead to the late-thirteenth-century Aristotelianizing that he and his contemporary, Robert Grosseteste, did so much to promote.

‘Ηννσται καί τετέλεσται: An Echo from Traditio I

Traditio ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 395-400
Author(s):  
Anselm Strittmatter
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Text Line ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Latin Version

In the medieval Latin translation of the two Liturgies of Constantinople — ‘St. Basil’ and ‘St. John Chrysostom’ —published from the twelfth-century Paris MS, Nouv. acq. lat. 1791, in 1943, the concluding prayer of the first of these two formularies, “‘Ηννσται καί τετέλεσται, contains a clause which, as was noted at the time, had not been found in any Greek MS. Now, after more than twelve years, two Greek MSS have been discovered — Sinait. 961, of the late eleventh or early twelfth century, and the liturgical roll No. 2 of the Laura, of the early years of the fourteenth century — neither of which indeed contains the interpolation of the Latin version in its entirety, but sufficient to warrant publication and study, for we have here the first trace — and more than a mere trace — of the clause, Si quid dimisimus, which has for so long been a baffling problem. Not unnaturally, this discovery has been the occasion of a re-examination of both the Latin version and the attempted reconstruction of the Greek original, with the result that more than one textual problem overlooked in the preparation of the first edition now stands out more clearly defined. This is especially true of the interesting rendering, ‘nutrimentum’ concerning which more is said below (Text, line 11 and Note 5).

Algazel Latinus: The Audience of the Summa theoricae philosophiae, 1150–1600

Traditio ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 153-215
Author(s):  
Anthony H. Minnema
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Latin translation of al-Ghazali's Maqās˙id al-falāsifa was one of the works through which scholastic authors became familiar with the Arabic tradition of Aristotelian philosophy after its translation in the middle of the twelfth century. However, while historians have examined in great detail the impact of Avicenna and Averroes on the Latin intellectual tradition, the place of this translation of al-Ghazali, known commonly as the Summa theoricae philosophiae, remains unclear. This study enumerates and describes the Latin audience of al-Ghazali by building on Manuel Alonso's research with a new bibliography of the known readers of the Summa theoricae philosophiae. It also treats Latin scholars' perception of the figure of al-Ghazali, or Algazel in Latin, since their understanding in no way resembles the Ash'arite jurist, Sufi mystic, and circumspect philosopher known in the Muslim world. Latin scholars most commonly viewed him only as an uncritical follower of Avicenna and Aristotle, but they also described him in other ways during the Middle Ages. In addition to tracing the rise, decline, and recovery of Algazel and the Summa theoricae philosophiae in Latin Christendom over a period of four centuries, this study examines the development of Algazel's identity as he shifts from a useful Arab to a dangerous heretic in the minds of Latin scholars.

scholarly journals Early Texts on Hindu-Arabic Calculation

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 13-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Menso Folkerts
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Decimal Place ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Place Value ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
The West ◽  
Value System

This article describes how the decimal place value system was transmitted from India via the Arabs to the West up to the end of the fifteenth century. The arithmetical work of al-Khwārizmī's, ca. 825, is the oldest Arabic work on Indian arithmetic of which we have detailed knowledge. There is no known Arabic manuscript of this work; our knowledge of it is based on an early reworking of a Latin translation. Until some years ago, only one fragmentary manuscript of this twelfth-century reworking was known (Cambridge, UL, Ii.6.5). Another manuscript that transmits the complete text (New York, Hispanic Society of America, HC 397/726) has made possible a more exact study of al-Khwārizmī's work. This article gives an outline of this manuscript's contents and discusses some characteristics of its presentation.

The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Translation Program in Toledo in the Twelfth Century

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 249-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Burnett
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Latin Translation

This article reassesses the reasons why Toledo achieved prominence as a center for Arabic-Latin translation in the second half of the twelfth century, and suggests that the two principal translators, Gerard of Cremona and Dominicus Gundissalinus, concentrated on different areas of knowledge. Moreover, Gerard appears to have followed a clear program in the works that he translated. This is revealed especially in the Vita and the “commemoration of his books” drawn up by his students after his death. A new edition of the Vita, Commemoratio librorum and Eulogium, based on all the manuscripts, concludes the article.

scholarly journals Translation-Based Chronicles, Twelfth to Thirteenth Centuries. New Sources for the Arabo-Latin Translation Movement in the Iberian Peninsula

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias M. Tischler
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Different Types ◽  
History Of

AbstractWithin the well-known panorama of the Arabo-Latin translation movement in the Iberian Peninsula from the twelfth century onwards, the transfer of Arabic biographical and historiographical texts into Latin writing is clearly understudied. Earlier research has focussed on the Arabo-Latin transfer of philosophical, scientific and religious texts without taking into account the role of biohistorical material within the history of cultural exchange and entanglements between Muslims and Christians. And even more recent research on Latin historiographical writing has still not been fully aware of these processes of Arabo-Latin transfer and transformation that also exist. The article analyzes three outstanding Arabo-Latin chronicles from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Chronica gothorum Pseudo-Isidoriana, the Chronica latina regum Castellae and Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada’s Historia Arabum, thus examining different types of written and oral transfer of Arabo-Latin historical knowledge and finally introducing the notion of ‘frontier historiography’ to describe these translation-based chronicles.

Twelfth-Century Toledo and Strategies of the Literalist Trojan Horse

Target ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Pym
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Trojan Horse ◽  
The State ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Alfonso X ◽  
Potential Conflict ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Church Authority ◽  
The Church ◽  
Translation Principles

Abstract The scientific translating associated with twelfth-century Toledo remains a poorly understood phenomenon. Attention to its political dimension suggests that it should not be attached to the state-subsidized work carried out under Alfonso X after 1250 but is better explained in terms of Cluniac sponsorship of the first Latin translation of the Qur'an in 1142. This approach reveals grounds for potential conflict between the foreign scientific translators and the Toledo cathedral. Such conflict would nevertheless have been smoothed over by certain translation principles serving both scientific and religious interests. The foremost of these principles were literalism, secondary elaboration, the use of teamwork, the inferiorization of non-Latinist intermediaries, justification of conquest and the accordance of authority to non-Christian texts. Thanks to this shared regime, the Church helped scientific translations to enter Latin. But the translations brought with them a questioning spirit that would contest and eventually undermine Church authority.

Liber de causis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannes Jarka-sellers
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Source ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
The West ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

The Liber de causis (Book of Causes) is a short treatise on Neoplatonist metaphysics, composed in Arabic by an unknown author probably in the ninth century in Baghdad. Through its twelfth-century Latin translation, it greatly influenced mature medieval philosophy in the West. Drawing heavily on the Greek Neoplatonist Proclus, the Liber de causis represents a development of late Neoplatonism along two lines. On the one hand, the author modifies and simplifies Proclus’ theory of causes to accord more closely with the three-part division of ultimate causes advanced by the founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus. On the other hand, the author introduces some of the metaphysical principles of Qu’ranic or biblical monotheism. The result is a metaphysically provocative reinterpretation of Neoplatonist thought which, because it seemed to accommodate Platonist philosophy to the medieval worldview, made the Liber de causis a natural source text for medieval philosophers.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document