Raymond of Marseilles

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Raymond von Marseille (* before 1120; † in the 12th century) was a French astronomer and astrologer .

Little is known about him - his name appears on one of the manuscripts of his works (Liber cursuum planetarum), so that the name Raymond von Marseille was first ascribed to the author in 1924. He worked in Marseille in 1141 and before.

Three works by Raymond von Marseille have survived:

  • Treatise on the astrolabe ( Vite presentis indutias silentio .. ), preserved in a manuscript in Paris. It covers both the construction and the use of the astrolabe. It is one of the first Latin texts that convey an exact knowledge of the instrument in the West - there were earlier Latin texts from the 10th and 11th centuries, but they were not as precise. There are also star tables in the work and he uses Az-Zarqali as a source but also, for example, Hermann von Reichenau's book on the astrolabe.
  • Liber cursuum planetarum , astronomical tables with an introduction in which the planetary movement is also discussed. The work is preserved in three manuscripts (Paris National Library, Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Oxford) and was first analyzed by Pierre Duhem . Raymond of Marseille used the Toledaner tables and the work of az-Zarqali, adapting the tables to the geographical latitude of Marseille. The work was created in 1140 before the translation of the Toledaner Tafeln by Gerhard von Cremona and before his Latin translation of the Almagest (1175) and thus shows the earliest influences of Greek astronomy mediated by the Arabs in the Latin West.
  • Liber judiciorum , on astrology, survived in about 10 manuscripts. It was long considered missing, but was then identified with A philosophis astronomiam sic difinitam , a work previously attributed to Johannes Hispalensis .

The attribution of the Liber Judiciorum and the treatise on the astrolabe is based on references in the Liber cursuum planetarum.

In the 14th century, Nikolaus von Kues ascribes a translation of a work on alchemy (Theorica occultorum) to a Ramundus Marsiliensis, who is possibly identical with Raymond of Marseille.

literature

  • Emmanuel Poulle , Marie-Thérèse d'Alverny , Charles Burnett: Raymond de Marseille. Opera Omnia , Volume 1 (Traité de l'Astrolabe. Liber Cursuum Planetarum), CNRS editions 2009, website for the book (the planned second volume should contain the Liber Judiciorum)
  • Emmanuel Poulle: Raymond of Marseille , Dictionary of Scientific Biography ( online )
  • Emmanuel Poulle: Le traité d´astrolabe de Raymond de Marseille , Studi Medievali, 3rd series, Volume 5, 1964, pp. 866-909
  • Paul Duhem: Le systeme du monde , 1915
  • Charles Homer Haskins : Studies in the History of Medieval Science , Cambridge 1924
  • Richard Lemay: Abu Ma'shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century. The Recovery of Aristotle's natural philosophy through Arabic astrology , Beirut 1962

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The translation of al-Khwarizmi's Astronomical Tables by Adelard von Bath (1126) was also comparatively early.
  2. ↑ 1928–2011, former director of the École nationale des chartes and professor of palaeography there . Specialized in the history of astronomy in the Middle Ages.
  3. ↑ 1903-1991. Curator at the Cabinet des Manuscripts of the Bibliothèque nationale de France . Since she died in 1991, the work was delayed considerably.
  4. ^ Warburg Institute London
personal data
SURNAME Raymond of Marseilles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH before 1120
DATE OF DEATH 12th Century