|
Did You Know?
City of Toledo, Spain is famous for its Translation School where great Arabic works were translated into Latin?
In the twelfth century, the first college of translators from Arabic into Latin was set up in the city of Toledo, Spain It was founded by Don Raimundo, Archbishop of Toledo from 1126 to 1151. A Benedictine monk, Raimundo was convinced of the importance of the Arab philosophers for an understanding of Aristotle, and decided to make their works available in Latin.
In Toledo, the coexistence of Muslims, Christians, and Jews facilitated the development of the Translation School. Scholars from all over Europe met here to translate medical, scientific, and esoteric literature.
The most important of the Toledan translators was undoubtedly Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187). Thanks to a brief notice left by his pupils on his life and work, we know that Gerard came to Toledo after finishing his studies in Italy, in order to learn more about the Almagest.
This vast astronomical treatise by Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy), the
celebrated second-century-AD Greek astronomer, mathematician and geographer, was then only available in Arabic. In fact, Gerard discovered a multitude of scientific works in Arabic in Toledo, and immediately began to learn the language so as to read them and, later, to render them into Latin.
The cities of Toledo and Cordoba have been declared by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites for their extensive cultural and monumental heritage.
Sources:
Burman, Thomas. Islam in Spain and Western Europe. The Muslim Almanac edited by Azim A. Nanji. Gale Research Inc. Detroit. 1996
Badawi, Abdurrahman. The Toledo school. UNESCO Courier. December 1991 |
