Michael Scotus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Scotus (* around 1180 in Scotland or Ireland; † around 1235) was a scholastic philosopher , translator, medic , alchemist and astrologer , whom Dante Alighieri described as a magician . The scholar , who worked at the court of Emperor Frederick II , was best known for his Latin translations of Avicenna ( De animalibus ) and Aristotle ( De animalibus ) as well as translations of Averroes comments that were ascribed to him and, in the case of De caelo, probably actually carried out by himself Aristotelian works from Arabic .

Youth and education

The fact that Michael Scotus was born in Scotland seems to result from his self-given name, but could also indicate Irish origins. Some more recent sources assume the year of birth to be around 1175, but this cannot be verified; the late 12th century is safe to assume. His education must have been broad, since he was later usually called magister Michael Scotus, one can conclude that he was teaching at a university. It is known that he grew up with his uncle, who sent him to a university abroad.

Before he went to Toledo to work as a translator and astrologer, he already taught Latin language and literature. And from an early age he showed a great interest in terms, names, definitions and etymologies. He also used the book Etymologies of Isidore of Seville , which, as the most widely read encyclopedia of the early Middle Ages, was still in high favor with Michael Scotus' contemporaries and its use suggests that he received a thorough training in the elementary clerical Latin-speaking Had enjoyed education.

Translation work in Toledo

Main article: Toledo School of Translators

Due to its continued closeness to Islam , Toledo was one of the most important cities of education. Here various known translators were already active, such as John of Seville , Herman of Carinthia , Adelard of Bath , who was the first student from Britain came, and Gerard of Cremona , the translator of the Almagest of Ptolemy and De celo et mundo the Aristoteles . The first tangible date in Michael Scotus 'life is August 18, 1217. At this time he completed the translation of an Arabic astronomical work, namely the Kitāb fi' l-haiʾa of Alpetragius , who lived in al-Andalus in the 12th century lived.

Before 1220 he translated the three books Historia animalium , De partibus animalium and De generatione animalium by Aristotle , which were available in Arabic and which then also gained great influence through the use of Albertus Magnus for his De animalibus . Although Wilhelm von Moerbeke completed his translations directly from the Greek on December 23, 1260, those by Michael Scotus were still used in the universities in the 15th century.

His reputation as a translator is based mainly on the attributed translations of the Averroes commentaries in Aristotle's writings such as De anima , De sensu et sensato , De celo et mundo , Physica and Metaphysica . A total of 14 translations of Averroes commentaries have survived, some of which were probably completed at the court of Frederick II. These translations from Arabic require not only very good language skills, but also detailed knowledge of the content, as the Arabic script was unvocalized and this can lead to serious errors in understanding the content. This also suggests that Michael Scotus also made use of Arab assistants. Pope Gregory IX also attests to his very good language skills and the fact that he did not translate directly from Greek . who praised Michael Scotus' knowledge of Arabic, Hebrew and Latin, but made no mention of Greek.

Late years

Michael Scotus left Toledo around 1220, because he showed up in Bologna to pursue a medical activity: He was curing a tumor. Between 1224 and 1227 Michael Scotus seems to be in the service of Pope Honorius III. and his successor Gregory IX. to stand. On May 31, 1224 he was elected Archbishop of Cashel in Ireland . But he had to give up the office because he did not speak the Irish language . On May 9, 1227 he was given further benefices in Scotland and England . Michael Scotus seems to have been a cleric according to these statements , although he did not belong to any religious order, which is why Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon also commented negatively about him. After 1227 it no longer appears in the papal registers and it can be assumed that not long afterwards it moved to the court of Frederick II in Sicily. This probably happened through the mediation of Leonard von Pisa , who dubbed Michael Scotus as "the best philosopher".

The second edition of Liber Abaci , Leonardo Fibonacci's mathematics book from 1227, was dedicated to Michael Scot. From this it has been concluded that Michael Scot even played a certain role in Fibonacci's representation of the sequence of numbers now known as the Fibonacci sequence .

The role Michael Scotus played as court astrologist at the court of Frederick II has not yet been fully clarified. What is certain is that he worked for him as a translator. At his request, he translated the Abbrevatio de animalibus des Avicenna , the eighth book of natural history in the book of recovery , which Frederick II then used for his falcon book De arte venandi cum avibus . He also advised him on astrological and philosophical issues and wrote medical and astrological writings at court. Frederick II also tried to profit from questions to his court astrologer, which he put to Michael Scotus during a convalescent stay in the baths near Puzzouli in October / November 1227. By Salimbene of Parma us also narrated an anecdote in which Frederick II turned. His court astrologer and medical advisor to the test. He was supposed to calculate the distance between the sky and a steeple. The astrologer calculated and communicated the result to his emperor. Then Friedrich secretly had the tower removed by a hand's breadth and told Michael Scotus to recalculate the distance because he had forgotten it. Michael Scotus did not get the same result as before and said that the sky was higher than first or the church had sunk a hand's breadth. Thereupon the emperor hugged his astrologer about his exact calculation.

Michael Scotus' literary fame in the Middle Ages is based, leaving aside the translations and activities at the court of the emperor, on his writings on astrology and medicine, above all the major work Liber Introductorius .

Liber introductorius

The Liber introductorius is divided into three different sections. It is divided into the Liber quatuor distinctonum , the Liber particularis and the Liber physiognomiae . The entire work is dedicated to Emperor Frederick II and the Liber physiognomiae was even written at his instigation. The exact dating of the work turns out to be difficult, but the introduction refers to Francis of Assisi - he was canonized on July 16, 1228. At least the introduction was written after this date. The first part of the work, the Liber quatuor distinctonum , has been preserved incompletely and was probably also unfinished at the time of Michael Scotus' death. This part and the liber particularis lack both internal unity and systematic arrangement . So it is not surprising that Liber physiognomiae was viewed as a single book and even appeared in no fewer than 20 editions by 1500. The first two parts deal with the topics of astronomy , astrology , meteorology , medicine , music and computistics . The already mentioned catalog of questions of Frederick II and Michael Scotus' answers are also included here. In Liber physiognomiae he then addresses questions about sexual intercourse, pregnancy, embryology and physiognomy.

His explanations suggest extensive knowledge, but can also make today's reader smile. He writes that humans can live 140 years because there are 14 joints on the fingers and toes and each joint lasts for 10 years. But because of sins, there is only a maximum lifespan of 120 years. He continues to find very empirically that women live longer than men. Then he advises that you should wash yourself with fresh, cold spring water in the summer and drink it too, because after the pores closed by the cold of the water, the natural heat would be preserved. When it was very hot in summer, he warned men not to have sexual intercourse, except for women. He also forbade bloodletting in hot weather unless the disease made it appear absolutely necessary. But he was also interested in the differences between people from different regions. He paid particular attention to the differences in shape, language, behavior, clothing and movement in times of peace and war, health and disease between Lombards , Slavs , Germans , Greeks , Mongols , Saracens , Scots , Jews and Egyptians .

Further works by Michael Scotus are the Ars Alchemie and the Vaticinium , the first of which is about the transformation of metals and the Vaticinium of prophecies about Italian cities. He also wrote smaller alchemical and medical texts.

The end of Michael Scotus

Michael Scotus is last recorded in the papal registers on April 28, 1232. His date of death is set around 1235, because in a political poem probably composed between June 1235 and 1236 at the court of Frederick II, the Norman poet Heinrich von Avranches mentions him as no longer alive. Based on this poem, it has also been assumed that Michael Scotus was last in relation to Friedrich's court. News of his death is as anecdotal as the "tower puzzle" described, and there are no reliable sources about it. Francesco Pipino says that Michael Scotus foresaw how he would be killed by a small stone and then invented a head protection, the cerebrerium . Pipino continues that one day, while Michael Scotus was attending mass, he was taking off this very headgear, and at that very moment a small stone fell from the vault and slightly wounded his head. After looking at the stone, he arranged his affairs and died shortly afterwards.

Works

  • Aristotle : De Animalibus. Part three, Books XV-XIX: Generation of Animals. Michael Scot's Arabic-Latin translation. Edited by Aafke MI Van Oppenraaij. With a greek index to De generatione animalium by HJ Drossaart Lulofs . Brill, Leiden 1992.
  • Liber de signis. In: Silke Ackermann: Great moments at the imperial court: Michael Scotus and his book of the images and signs of heaven . Frankfurt am Main 2009, pp. 99-281.

literature

  • Silke Ackermann: Great moments at the imperial court: Michael Scotus and his book of the images and signs of heaven . Frankfurt am Main 2009.
  • Ulrike Bauer: The Liber Introductorius of Michael Scotus in the copy Clm 10268 of the Bavarian State Library in Munich . 1983.
  • Charles Burnett: Master Theodore, Frederick II's Philosopher . In: Federico II e le nuove culture. Atti del XXXI Convegno storico internazionale, Todi, 9-12 ottobre 1994 . Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, Spoleto 1995, pp. 225-285.
  • Martin Grabmann : Emperor Friedrich II. And his relationship to Aristotelian and Arabic philosophy . In: Gunther Wolf (Ed.): Stupor Mundi. On the history of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen . Darmstadt 1966, pp. 134-177.
  • Charles Homer Haskins: Studies in Mediaeval Culture . Oxford 1929.
  • Charles Homer Haskins: Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science . New York 1960.
  • Klaus Heinisch (Ed.): Kaiser Friedrich II. In letters and reports of his time . Darmstadt 1968.
  • Rudolf Hoffmann: Translation-related problems of understanding in the great metaphysical commentary of Averroës . In: Albert Zimmermann (ed.): Aristotelian heritage in the Arab-Latin Middle Ages (= Miscellanae Mediaevalia. Volume 18). Berlin 1986, pp. 141-160.
  • Christoph Kann:  Michael Scotus. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 5, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-043-3 , Sp. 1459-1461.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Lynn Thorndike : Michael Scot . London and Edinburgh 1965.
  • Nigel F. Palmer : Scotus, Michael. In: Author's Lexicon . 2nd Edition. Volume 8, Col. 966-971.
  • Hans H. Lauer: Michael Scotus. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 986.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ TC Scott, P. Marketos: On the Origin of the Fibonacci Sequence ( en , PDF) MacTutor History of Mathematics archive , University of St Andrews. March 8, 2014. Accessed March 23, 2014.
  2. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier : Avicenna. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-41946-1 , p. 144 f.
  3. ↑ according to Nigel F. Palmer , datable to 1234.
personal data
SURNAME Scotus, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION medieval philosopher, medic, alchemist and astrologer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1180
PLACE OF BIRTH Scotland
DATE OF DEATH around 1235