Adelard of Bath

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Adelard von Bath , also Adelardus Bathonensis , (* around 1070 , † around 1152 ) was an important English scholar and translator of the 12th century. Along with Gerhard von Cremona and Wilhelm von Moerbeke, he is considered to be one of the most important scholars who at the time made Arabic science known in Europe through translations, and through it that of antiquity.

Life

Only derived from his name is it believed that Adelard of Bath was actually born in Bath . He studied in Tours and taught in Laon . He then spent seven years traveling through Sicily , including visiting Salerno (before 1116), where an important school for medicine was at that time, and possibly from Sicily to Asia Minor ( Cilicia , Syria or Antioch ) he also visited Palestine , perhaps Jerusalem and probably Spain as well. He may have acquired his knowledge of Arabic and Arabic science in Sicily and Salerno as well as in Spain. In 1130 he can be traced back to Bath. He dedicated a book on the astrolabe to Henry, regis nepos ( Henry II ), which can thus be dated between 1142 and 1146 and shows his connection to the royal court.

He translated many important Arabic scholarly works into Latin, including many ancient Greek texts that were only available in Arabic translation. He also translated from the Greek.

The works he translated included Euclid's Elements , the first translation into Latin, apart from the incomplete translation by Boethius (from the Greek). He translated from Arabic, possibly the version of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn Matar . Three versions are associated with his name, called Adelard I, II, III. They differ greatly, I is an almost complete translation, in II the evidence has been replaced by instructions, III is more of a comment. The attribution of Adelard III is controversial; the manuscript was written before 1200 and became known by Adelard's name. It was quoted by Roger Bacon, among others . Adelard I was later used by Campanus of Novara for its edition.

Adelard also translated al-Khwarizmi's astronomical work Zīj al-Sindhind , which is about astronomical tables. The translation is usually dated to 1126 according to a date in the text.

Another work that is often ascribed to him is Liber ysagogarum Alchorismi in artem astronomicam a magistro A. (where he is identified with the Magister A.). The compilation draws on different sources: the astronomical parts from Arabic-Hebrew, the geometry part from ancient Latin sources. It covers arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, including the decimal system. The book is thus one of the earliest traditional treatments of the Indo-Arabic decimal system in Latin Western Europe. There is a manuscript in Cambridge of an older (before 1143) Latin translation of al-Khwarizmi's De numero indorum that he may have known.

He also translated two astrological works from Arabic, one by Albumasar (Ysagoga minor Japharis matematici in astronomicam per Adhelardum bathoniensem ex arabico sumpta), another by Thabit ibn Qurra (Liber Prestigiorum Thebidis secundum Ptolomeum et Hermetem per Adelardum bathoniensem translatus).

He also authored a book on birds (specifically falcons) and two philosophical works. De eodem diverso is dedicated to Bishop Wilhelm of Syracuse and, since it does not yet show any Arab influence, but tries to combine Platonic and Aristotelian influences, it is dated before 1116 or the time when he began to deal with Arabic science in southern Italy. The second book Quaestiones naturales takes the form of a dialogue with his nephew and deals with a wide variety of topics from physics and meteorology to psychology, botany and zoology. It is not completely transmitted. The work shows traces of Arab influence, but does not directly quote any Arab authors. For example, he describes an instrument with a function similar to a pipette , which was known in the 12th century from Arabic translations of ancient sources such as Heron of Alexandria . There is a clear tendency in this work to rely more on observation of nature than on the authority of tradition or supernatural explanations. A book Mappae clavicula on chemistry is also attributed to him, but it is probably older.

By F. Bliemetzrieder he undertook later a visit to Sicily or southern Italy, where he in 1160 the Almagest of Claudius Ptolemy translated from Greek, but this view did not prevail due to poor evidence base.

Works

  • Charles Burnett (Editor): Adelard of Bath, Conversations with his nephew. On the Same and the Different, questions on Natural Science and On Birds , Cambridge University Press 1998 (Latin text, translation and commentary by De eodem et diverso, De avibus tractatus, Questiones naturales)
  • Liber ysagorum Alchorismi : Maximilian Curtze (editor), Treatises on the history of mathematics, Issue 8, 1898, pp. 1–27 (part)
    • partly also in A. Allard Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. Le calcul indien (algorism): histoire des textes, édition critique, traduction et commentaire des plus anciennes versions latines remaniée du XIIe siècle , Paris, Namur 1992
    • complete in BG Dickey Adelard of Bath , PhD thesis, University of Toronto 1982,
  • De eodem et diverso (editor H. Willner), Contributions to the history of the philosophy of the Middle Ages, Volume 4, Issue 1, 1903, pp. 1–34
  • Quaestiones naturales (editor M. Müller), Contributions to the history of the philosophy of the Middle Ages, Volume 31, 1934, Issue 2, pp. 1-69

See also

literature

  • Charles Burnett (Editor) Adelard of Bath. An english scientist and arabist of the early 12th century , London, The Warburg Institute 1987
  • Jeremiah Hackett Adelard of Bath , in Jorge Gracia, Timothy Noone (Editor) A companion to philosophy in the middle ages , Chapter 2, Blackwell 2003
  • Marshall Clagett : Adelard of Bath . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 1 : Pierre Abailard - LS Berg . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1970, p. 61-64 .
  • the same The medieval latin translations from the arabic of the Elements of Euclid, with special emphasis on the versions of Adelard of Bath , Isis, Volume 44, 1953, pp. 16-42
  • Charles H. Haskins Studies in the history of medieval science , 2nd edition, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1927, pp. 20-42
  • Charles H. Haskins Adelard of Bath , The English Historical Review, Volume 26, 1911, pp. 491-498
  • Charles H. Haskins Adelard of Bath and Henry Plantagenet , The English Historical Review, Volume 28, 1913, pp. 515-516
  • Placidus Franz Bliemetzrieder Adelhard von Bath , Munich 1935
  • Otto Neugebauer The astronomical tables of Al-Khwarizmi. Translation with commentaries of the latin versions edited by H. Suter supplemented by Corpus Christis MS 283 , Copenhagen 1961
  • Hubert LL Busard The first latin translation of Euclid's Elements commonly ascribed to Adelard of Bath: books I-VIII and books X.36-XV.2 , Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983
  • Hubert LL Busard (editor) Johannes de Tinemue's Redaction of Euclid's Elements, the so-called Adelard III Version , 2 volumes, Boethius, Volume 45, 1/2, Franz Steiner verlag 2001
  • Hubert LL Busard, Menso Folkerts (editor) Robert of Chester 's (?) Redaction of Euclid's Elements, the so-called Adelard II Version , Birkhäuser, 1992

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marshall Clagett, Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. ↑ Editions of it published Kurt Vogel , Baldassare Boncompagni and Adolf Pawlowitsch Juschkewitsch .
  3. ^ Marshall Clagett, Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  4. ^ Marshall Clagett, Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  5. ↑ Clagget, Dictionary of Scientific Biography
personal data
SURNAME Adelard of Bath
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English scholar
DATE OF BIRTH around 1070
DATE OF DEATH around 1160