Abstract
Many of Stephen’s modifications of Ibn al-Haytham’s cosmography were designed to adapt the text more closely to astronomical works and methods. Many, but not all, of these efforts focused on the astronomical tables contained in Stephen’s Regule canonis, which in all likelihood he also encountered in Antioch. Stephen also refers to Ptolemy in certain questions, but disagrees with several of his views and prefers more recent observations. Although Stephen does not tell us which astronomical source(s) he eventually follows, the Liber Mamonis contains indications of various astronomical traditions that influenced the work.
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Notes
- 1.
Cf. above, pp. 4 and 8.
- 2.
Burnett, ‘Transmission’, p. 31.
- 3.
The discussion of Ptolemy’s negligence regarding the solar apogee continued in modern times, e.g., in Manitius’ reproach and Toomer’s defence of Ptolemy; cf. Almagest (tr. Manitius), vol. I, pp. 428–9, and Almagest (tr. Toomer), p. 153, note 46.
- 4.
Richard Lemay, unpublished edition. Lemay assumes that al-Battānı̄ was also the source for Stephen’s astronomical tables in the Regule canonis.
- 5.
Cf. p. 72:18f. and al-Battānı̄ (ed. Nallino), pt. III, pp. 92–94.
- 6.
Cf. above, p. 10.
- 7.
Al-Battānı̄ (ed. Nallino), pt. III, p. 39.
- 8.
See pp. 102:17 and 80:25.
- 9.
Cf. Al-Battānı̄ (ed. Nallino), pt. III, p. 175.
- 10.
Cf. Pedersen, Survey, and Neugebauer, HAMA.
- 11.
Here and in the following, references to the Handy Tables will be made based on the transliteration of MS Vat. gr. 1291 made by W. Stahlman, Astronomical Tables, here pp. 41 and 223.
- 12.
Cf. Stahlman, Astronomical Tables, pp. 153 and 331f.
- 13.
Cf. Yaḥyā ibn Abı̄ Manṣūr, Verified Astronomical Tables, p. 41. I am grateful to Dr. van Dalen, who drew my attention to the Mumtaḥan tradition concerning this parameter.
- 14.
van Dalen, ‘A Second Manuscript of the Mumtaḥan Zı̄j’, p. 19.
- 15.
Yaḥyā ibn Abı̄ Manṣūr, Verified Astronomical Tables, pp. 110 and 114; Stahlman, Astronomical Tables, pp. 153 and 325–334; Viladrich, ‘The planetary latitude tables in the Mumtaḥan Zı̄j’, p. 265; Mozaffari, ‘Planetary latitudes in medieval Islamic astronomy’, p. 517, note 3. I am grateful to Dr. Mozaffari for having drawn my attention to al-Farghānı̄.
- 16.
Cf. Stahlman, Astronomical Tables, p. 298, and Yaḥyā ibn Abı̄ Manṣūr, Verified Astronomical Tables, p. 52.
- 17.
Cf. Yaḥyā ibn Abı̄ Manṣūr, Verified Astronomical Tables, pp. 49–54. The same correspondence exists with columns 3 to 7 in the Handy Tables, and al-Battānı̄ also arranged the columns of his planetary tables in that order; cf. Stahlman, Astronomical Tables, pp. 295–300, and, accordingly, al-Battānı̄ (ed. Nallino), pt. II, pp. 108–113.
- 18.
Yaḥyā ibn Abı̄ Manṣūr, Verified Astronomical Tables, pp. 39–44. In Alm. V,8, the order of corresponding columns is 1, 4, 2, 3; in al-Battānı̄ (ed. Nallino), pt. II, pp. 78–83, it is 3, 1, 2, 4; in the Handy Tables (trl. Stahlman), pp. 249–254, an additional column for the double elongation is prefixed.
- 19.
A connection between Abraham ibn Ezra’s Pisan Tables and Stephen of Antioch’s astronomical work has occasionally been assumed; cf. Burnett, ‘Transmission’, p. 36, and Samsó, ‘«Dixit Abraham Iudaeus»’; see also Mercier, ‘The lost zij of al-Sufi in the twelfth century tables for London and Pisa’. However, the astronomical parameters in the different works do not indicate a direct relation.
- 20.
See e.g. Mozaffari, ‘An analysis of medieval solar theories’.
- 21.
Stephen has no doubt about the position of the apogee in his time, and he also considers Ptolemy’s determination of the solar apogee to be accurate (cf. p. 218:11ff.). So it is surprising that he does not use both positions to discuss the apogee’s motion independently. Also, the speed of the apogee as given by Stephen does not support his statement that Ptolemy determined the apogee position correctly. This adds to the impression that Stephen did not have a clear opinion about the apogee’s motion and did not calculate apogee positions by himself, but rather collected information from different sources.
- 22.
A rounded daily motion of 0;2,1∘ /d for Saturn would agree with Stephen’s habit of giving the planetary motions to a precision of arc-seconds. Moreover, the notation of Saturn’s motion in the Liber Mamonis does not always end with the arc-minutes. It is sometimes followed by the phrase ‘et sec’, which in the absence of a number can be understood as ‘one’ arc-second.
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Grupe, D. (2019). Stephen’s Astronomical Sources and his Lost Regule Canonis . 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_5
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