Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus - Studies
Editing and Analysing Numerical Tables
Towards a Digital Information System for the History of Astral Sciences
Astronomical tables are a significant yet understudied part of the scientific historical corpus. They circulated among many cultures and were adopted and transformed by astronomical practitioners for a variety of purposes. The numerical data conveyed in these tables provides rich evidence for pre-modern scientific practices. In the last fifty years new approaches to the analysis and critical editing of astronomical tables have flourished due to advances in computing power and associated modern mathematical tools. In more recent times the rapid growth of digital humanities and modern data analysis promises exciting further developments in this area. The present collection of studies on astronomical tables captures this momentum. It is a result of long-term collaborative work on building a database of astronomical tables and other objects found in manuscripts released under the name DISHAS (Digital Information System for the History of Astral Sciences). The fourteen contributions in this volume provide a broad coverage of astronomical traditions throughout Eurasia and North Africa which with very few exceptions find their roots in the mathematical astronomy of Ptolemy. The contributions include critical editions of previously unexamined astronomical tables along with insightful mathematical analyses as well as reflective methodological surveys that open up new perspectives for research on these fundamental sources for the history of mathematics and astronomy.
Ptolemy’s Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages
Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100-170 ad) is one of the most influential scholars of all time. While he is also the author of treatises on geography optics and harmonics his fame primarily stems from two works on the science of the stars dealing with mathematical astronomy (the Almagest) and astrology (the Tetrabiblos). The Almagest and the Tetrabiblos remained the fundamental texts on the science of the stars for some 1500 years. Both were translated several times into Arabic and Latin and were heavily commented upon glossed discussed and also criticised and improved upon in the Islamic world and in Christian Europe. Yet the reception of Ptolemy in medieval cultures is still to a large extent a terra incognita of the history of science. The Arabic and Latin versions of the Almagest and the Tetrabiblos are for the most part unavailable in modern editions their manuscripts remain largely unexplored and generally speaking their history has never been systematically investigated.
This volume gathers together fifteen contributions dealing with various aspects of the reception of Ptolemy’s astronomy and astrology in the Islamic world and in Christian Europe up to the seventeenth century. Contributions are by José Bellver Jean-Patrice Boudet Josep Casulleras Bojidar Dimitrov Dirk Grupe Paul Hullmeine Alexander Jones Richard L. Kremer Y. Tzvi Langermann H. Darrel Rutkin Michael H. Shank Nathan Sidoli Carlos Steel Johannes Thomann and Henry Zepeda.