Gerard Cremonensis
Gerard
of Cremona (Italian: Gherardo da Cremona; Latin: Gerardus Cremonensis;
c. 1114 - 1187), the Italian translator of Arabic scientific works was
most famous as the translator of Ptolemy's Astronomy from Arabic texts found in Toledo.
He was one of a small group of scholars who invigorated medieval
Europe in the 12th century by transmitting Greek and Arab traditions in
astronomy, medicine and other sciences, in the form of translations into
Latin, which made them available to every literate person in the West.
Gerard was born in Cremona. Dissatisfied with the meager philosophies
of his Italian teachers, Gherardo followed his true passions and went
to Toledo. There he learned Arabic at a school for translators,
initially so that he could read Ptolemy's Almagest, which
retained its traditional high reputation among scholars, even though no
Latin translation existed. Although we do not have detailed information
of the date when Gerard went to Castile, it was no later than 1144.
Toledo, which had been a provincial capital in the Caliphate of
Cordoba and remained a seat of learning, was safely available to a
Catholic like Gerard, since it had been conquered from the Moors by
Alfonso VI of Castile. Toledo remained a multicultural capital. Its
rulers protected the large Jewish colony, and kept their trophy city an
important centre of Arab and Hebrew culture, one of the great scholars
associated with Toledo being Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, Gerard's
contemporary. The Moorish and Jewish inhabitants of Toledo adopted the
language and many customs of their conquerors, embodying Mozarabic
culture. The city was full of libraries and manuscripts, the one place
in Europe where a Christian could fully immerse himself in Arabic
language and culture.
In Toledo Gerard devoted the remainder of his life to making Latin translations from the Arabic scientific literature.
Gerard of Cremona's Latin translation of an Arabic text was the only version of Ptolemy's Almagest
that was known in Western Europe for centuries, until George of
Trebizond and then Johannes Regiomontanus translated it from the Greek
originals in the fifteenth century. The Almagest formed the basis for a mathematical astronomy until it was eclipsed by the theories of Copernicus.
Gerard edited for Latin readers the Tables of Toledo, the most accurate compilation of astronomical data ever seen in Europe at the time. The Tables
were partly the work of Al-Zarqali, known to the West as Arzachel, a
mathematician and astronomer who flourished in Cordoba in the eleventh
century.
Al-Farabi, the Islamic "second teacher" after Aristotle, wrote hundreds of treatises. His book on the sciences, Kitab al-lhsa al Ulum,
discussed classification and fundamental principles of science in a
unique and useful manner. Gerard rendered it as De scientiis (On the
Sciences).
Gerard translated Euclid's Geometry and Alfraganus's Elements of Astronomy.
Gerard also composed original treatises on algebra, arithmetic and
astrology. In the astrology text, longitudes are reckoned both from
Cremona and Toledo.
Free Ebooks by Gerard Cremonensis
On Astrological Geomancy
