Abstract
A comparison of the Liber Mamonis with Ibn al-Haytham’s On the Configuration shows that Stephen translated almost all of the Arabic text. The Cambrai manuscript is lacking the final pages, but one can assume that the text originally also included the final part of On the Configuration, i.e., passages 365 to 385. However, in addition to the new title, Stephen’s text shows many more deliberate changes.
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Notes
- 1.
Several of Stephen’s changes to Ibn al-Haytham’s work have a parallel in the later Alfonsine version, such as the division of the text into longer sections, moving Ch. 4 to a later place and replacing the original Ch. 1, and supplementing the work with a thorough commentary and additional illustrations. Unlike the Alfonsine author, whose repositioning of Ch. 4 caused a major inconsistency, Stephen wisely places the chapter before the discussion of the ascensions rather than after it; cf. also his comment on p. 120:1.
- 2.
Cf., e.g., p. 6:9: ‘…gratia eorum que nostratum auribus ignota erant.’
- 3.
See, e.g., p. 74:19f.
- 4.
See e.g. above, note 38, and p. 160:10: ‘Nam honestare Latinitatem totius si posset fieri subtilitate philosophie cum desiderem’.
- 5.
See, e.g., in the Glossary the terms ‘aux’ (apogee), ‘hadid’ (perigee) and ‘cenith’ (zenith) in the Madrid translation of On the Configuration.
- 6.
Cf. Langermann, ‘A note on the use of the term orbis (falak)’, and Langermann’s introduction to Ibn al-Haytham (ed. Langermann), Configuration, p. 4f.
- 7.
Cf. above, note 20.
- 8.
See Langermann’s notes in Ibn al-Haytham (ed. Langermann), Configuration, pp. 79f. and 109f.
- 9.
Cf. Ibn al-Haytham (ed. Langermann), Configuration, p. 80.
- 10.
Al-Battānı̄ (ed. Nallino), pt. III, pp. 19–21.
- 11.
See the notes in Ibn al-Haytham (ed. Langermann), Configuration, p. 109f. Langermann questions both traditions and suggests an emendation according to which the declination of every sign is determined by the sign’s final point in the direction of the succession of the signs. For the first and the third quadrants this produces the same wording as the modified reading in K. For the second and the fourth quadrants, however, Langermann needs to make substantial changes to all the preserved instances; cf. Ibn al-Haytham (ed. Langermann), Configuration, p. 105f. and, correspondingly, p. 26, and the notes on pp. 80 and 110. Langermann’s suggestion is followed by Samsó in his discussion of the Alfonsine translation; Samsó, El original arabe y la version alfonsi del Kitāb fı̄ hay’at al-‘ālam de Ibn al-Hayṯam, p. 126. However, the proposed changes to the text are unnecessary and not convincing.
- 12.
A similar construct is described at the end of Ch. 4 of al-Battānı̄’s Ṣābiʾ Zı̄j; al-Battānı̄ (ed. Nallino), pt. III, p. 19, with the corresponding diagram in pt. II, p. 58.
- 13.
The ambiguity affected Langermann’s translation of the passage and his notes thereto as well as the proposed replacement of ‘horizon’ with ‘instant’ in passage 179, as found in parts of the Hebrew tradition, for which there is no necessity; Ibn al-Haytham (ed. Langermann), Configuration, pp. 119 and 124.
- 14.
E.g., p. 242:17: ‘introducendis scripsimus.’
- 15.
Ibn al-Haytham (ed. Langermann), Configuration, p. 35.
- 16.
Samsó, ‘El original arabe’, p. 118f.
- 17.
I am grateful to Josefina Rodríguez Arribas for her help in reading the Hebrew captions in the Parma manuscript.
- 18.
Ibn al-Haytham (ed. Langermann), Configuration, p. 42f.
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Grupe, D. (2019). Stephen’s Version of On the Configuration . In: Stephen of Pisa and Antioch: Liber Mamonis. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19234-1_3
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