A Thirteenth-Century Latin List of Ptolemaic Coordinates
Main Article Content
Abstract
This article makes the argument that a Latin table of geographic coordinates, copied in Italy in the second half of the thirteenth century (MS Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 211, fol. 260r), is derived from a list excerpted from a Greek manuscript of the Κανὼν πόλεων ἐπισήμων (« Table of important cities ») in Ptolemy’s Handy Tables. Other sources that appear to bear witness to a thirteenth-century dissemination in Italy of geographic data from the Κανὼν include the Summa de astris of Gerard of Feltre (1264/65) and some later coordinate lists contained in fourteenth-century manuscripts.
* This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 894940.
Downloads
Article Details
Proposed Policy for Journals that Offer Open Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Since issue IV and for the future issues, it is the policy of the publisher that authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
References
Manuscripts
Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, A 593
Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 211
Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 28.26
Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, 610
Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, BPG 78
London, Wellcome Library, 308
Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, C 245 inf.
Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, Section Médecine, H 323
Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, 877
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 7434
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. lat. 303
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1388
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 3097
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 2288
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 3124
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 5311
Printed Sources
al-Battānī, Opus astronomicum, ed. Carlo Alfonso Nallino, 3 vol., Hoepli, Milan 1899–1907 (Pubblicazioni del Reale osservatorio di Brera in Milano, 40).
Ptolemy, Claudius, Handbuch der Geographie, ed. Alfred Stückelberger, Gerd Graßhoff, 2 vol., Schwabe, Basel 2006.
Raymond of Marseilles, Liber cursuum planetarum, in Opera omnia, vol. 1, ed. and trans. Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, Charles Burnett, Emmanuel Poulle, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2009 (Sources d’histoire médiévale, 40).
The Toledan Tables, ed. Fritz S. Pedersen, 4 vol., C. A. Reitzel, København 2002 (Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filosofiske Skrifter, 24.1–4).
Modern authors (after 1789)
Blume, Dieter, Mechthild Haffner, Wolfgang Metzger, Sternbilder des Mittelalters: Der gemalte Himmel zwischen Wissenschaft und Phantasie, vol. 1, 800–1200, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2012.
Burri, Renate, Die ›Geographie‹ des Ptolemaios im Spiegel der griechischen Handschriften, de Gruyter, Berlin 2013 (Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte, 110).
Chabás, José, Bernard R. Goldstein, A Survey of European Astronomical Tables in the Late Middle Ages, Brill, Leiden 2012 (Time, Astronomy, and Calendars: Texts and Studies, 2).
Defaux, Olivier, The Iberian Peninsula in Ptolemy’s Geography: Origins of the Coordinates and Textual History, Edition Topoi, Berlin 2017 (Berlin Studies of the Ancient World, 51).
Fioravanti, Gianfranco, « La Quaestio de mixtione elementorum di Taddeo da Parma », Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, 83 (2016), p. 149–210.
Gautier Dalché, Patrick, « The Reception of Ptolemy’s Geography (End of the Fourteenth to Beginning of the Sixteenth Century) », in David Woodward (ed.), The History of Cartography, vol. 3, Cartography in the European Renaissance, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2007, p. 285–364.
Gautier Dalché, Patrick, La Géographie de Ptolémée en Occident (IVe–XVIe siècle), Brepols, Turnhout 2009 (Terrarum orbis, 9).
Grabmann, Martin, « Die ‘Summa de astris’ des Gerhard von Feltre O.P. », Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 11 (1941), p. 51–82; repr. as chapter 13 in idem, Mittelalterliches Geistesleben: Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Scholastik und Mystik, vol. 3, Hueber, Munich 1956, p. 254–272.
Honigmann, Ernst, Die sieben Klimata und die ΠΟΛΕΙΣ ΕΠΙΣΗΜΟΙ: Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte der Geographie und Astrologie im Altertum und Mittelalter, Winter, Heidelberg 1929.
Juste, David, « MS Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 5311 » (update: 21.05.2021), Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus. Manuscripts, URL = http://ptolemaeus.badw.de/ms/237.
Laguarda Trias, Rolando A., La ciencia española en el descrubrimiento de America (las tablas de coordenadas geográficas compiladas en la España medieval), Casa–Museo de Colon y Seminario Americanista de la Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid 1990 (Cuadernos Colombinos, 16).
Mittenhuber, Florian, Lutz Koch, « Der handschriftliche Bestand des ptolemäischen Κanons bedeutender Städte und sein Verhältnis zur Geographie », Museum Helveticum, 66 (2009), p. 29–58.
Nothaft, C. P. E., Medieval Latin Christian Texts on the Jewish Calendar: A Study with Five Editions and Translations, Brill, Leiden 2014 (Time, Astronomy, and Calendars: Texts and Studies, 4).
Paoli, Cesare, I Codici Ashburnhamiani della R. Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana di Firenze, vol. 1.3, Presso i principali librai, Rome 1891 (Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione: indici e cataloghi, 8).
Sezgin, Fuat, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, vol. 10, Mathematische Geographe und Kartographie im Islam und ihr Fortleben im Abendland: Historische Darstellung, Teil 1, Institut für Geschichte der Arabisch-
Islamischen Wissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main 2000.
Sorokina, Maria, « Un tournant dans la critique de l’astrologie? La Summa de astris de Gérard de Feltre », Philosophical Readings, 7 (2015), p. 71–92.
— « Une source inconnue de la Disputatio contra iudicium astrologorum de Marsile Ficin: la Summa de astris de Gérard de Feltre », Bruniana & Campanelliana, 21 (2015), p. 169–189.
— Les sphères, les astres et les théologiens: l’influence céleste entre science et foi dans les commentaires des Sentences (v. 1200–v. 1340), 2 vol., Brepols, Turnhout 2021 (Studia Sententiarum, 5).
Stückelberger, Alfred, Florian Mittenhuber (eds.), Klaudios Ptolemaios: Handbuch der Geographie; Ergänzungsband mit einer Edition des Kanons bedeutender Städte, Schwabe, Basel 2009.
Thorndike, Lynn, Latin Treatises on Comets between 1238 and 1368 A.D., University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1950.
— « A Hitherto Unnoticed Criticism of Astrology: Liber de reprobatione iudiciorum astrologiae », Isis, 31 (1939), p. 68–78.
Tihon, Anne, « Les Tables faciles de Ptolémée dans les manuscrits en onciale (IXe–Xe siècles) », Revue d’histoire des textes, 22 (1992), p. 47–87.
Toomer, G. J., « A Survey of the Toledan Tables », Osiris, 15 (1968), p. 5–174.
Wright, David H., « The Date of the Vatican Illuminated Handy Tables of Ptolemy and of its Early Additions », Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 78 (1985), p. 355–362.
Zambelli, Paola, The Speculum Astronomiae and Its Enigma: Astrology, Theology and Science in Albertus Magnus and his Contemporaries, Kluwer, Dordrecht 1992 (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 135).