John de Sacrobosco

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A page of a mathematical textbook by Johannes de Sacrobosco in the manuscript Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1400, fol. 12r (late 13th century)
Page of a printed edition of the Tractatus de Sphaera with numerous typical notes

Johannes de Sacrobosco (also Joannis de Sacro Bosco , English John of Holywood or John of Holybush ; * around 1195 probably in Nithsdale, Dumfriesshire , Scotland, † 1256 in Paris ) was an English mathematician and astronomer who taught at the University of Paris .

Life

Sacrobosco wrote four textbooks on the Quadrivium :

  • In his Tractatus de algorismo , which was used as a textbook until the 16th century, Sacrobosco showed the basics of arithmetic with whole numbers from the basic arithmetic operations to the extraction of roots and was the first to develop a multiplication table based on ten natural numbers.
  • His Tractatus de quadrante from 1239 describes the structure and use of the quadrans vetus (on the back of astrolabes there is often a scale for determining the temporal hours, called the hour quadrant or quadrans vetus ). This work was replaced by the work of Johannes Anglicus in the 1260s .
  • Around 1230 Sacrobosco wrote his best-known work Tractatus de Sphaera , an elementary textbook of spherical astronomy edited according to didactic principles. It is based on the Almagest of Claudius Ptolemy, which was only available in Latin about 50 years earlier, as well as works by Islamic scholars. Johannes de Sacrobosco discusses the place of the earth in the universe , the spherical shape of the earth, including the earth measurement, the climatic zones of the earth, the formation of eclipses etc. This work circulated in manuscripts before the invention of printing, first appeared in print in 1472 and was published until around Printed in 1650 in about 240 editions. It was used at universities across Europe as a mandatory elementary textbook for astronomy well into the 17th century.

The work was translated into Old Icelandic as early as 1250 and into German by Konrad von Megenberg in 1350 . Another German translation followed a few decades later, the Püchlein von der Spera . The German translation of Konrad Heinfogel's work appeared for the first time in Nuremberg in 1516, and continued in 1519, 1533 and 1536.

Sacrobosco showed himself to be a pioneer of the Arabic methods in mathematics and was one of the first in Western Europe to use Arabic numerals .

  • In his book De Anni Ratione (freely translated as "The Year System"), published in 1235, Sacrobosco criticized the Julian calendar and proposed an improved leap year rule, as it was 350 years later by Pope Gregory XIII. in the Gregorian calendar reform (1582) was realized.

The tomb of Sacrobosco is in the Mathurins monastery in Paris. The lunar crater Sacrobosco is named after him.

Works

  • Tractatus de Sphæra , around 1230
    • Digitized version of the Mittelhus edition, Paris 1493 (Munich University Library)
    • German translation: Das Puechlein von der Spera , ed. by Francis B. Brévart. Göppingen: Verlag Kümmerle, 1979. ISBN 3-87452-441-8
  • Tractatus de quadrante , around 1232
  • Textus de sphera Johannis de Sacrobosco: cum additione (quantum necessarium est) adiecta / novo commentario nuper editus (per Jacobum Faber Stapulen .) - Parisiis: Stephanus, 1511. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Tractatus de algorismo or De Arte Numerandi , printed without indication of place and time [1490?] And Vienna 1517 by Hieronymus Vietor; Krakow 1521 or 1522 and Venice 1523
  • De Anni Ratione or De Computo Ecclesiastico , Paris 1235, [1538?], 1550, 1572

literature

  • Thorndike, Lynn : The sphere of Sacrobosco and its commentators . - Chicago, Ill.: Univ. Pr., 1949
  • Hamel, Jürgen : Johannes de Sacroboscos manual of astronomy. Annotated bibliography of the prints of the "Sphaera", 1472 to 1656. In: Ways of knowledge. Festschrift for Dieter B. Herrmann on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Frankfurt a. M. 2004 (Acta Historica Astronomiae; 21), pp. 115-170
  • Hamel, Jürgen : Studies on the "Sphaera" of Johannes de Sacrobosco. Leipzig 2014 (Acta Historica Astronomiae; 51)

Web links

Commons : Johannes de Sacrobosco  - collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Rudolf Simek : Old Norse Cosmography , Walter de Gruyter 1990, p. 114 f.
personal data
SURNAME John de Sacrobosco
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Joannis de Sacro Bosco; John of Holywood; John of Holybush
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English mathematician and astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1195
PLACE OF BIRTH uncertain: Nithsdale, Dumfriesshire , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH 1256
Place of death Paris