Gerard of Cremona

European depiction of the Persian physician Rhazes, in Gerard of Cremona's Recueil des traités de médecine 1250–1260. Gerard de Cremona translated numerous works by Persian and Arab scholars.[1]

Gerard of Cremona (Latin: Gerardus Cremonensis; c. 1114 – 1187) was an Italian translator of scientific books from Arabic into Latin. He worked in Toledo, Kingdom of Castile and obtained the Arabic books in the libraries at Toledo. Some of the books had been originally written in Greek and, although well known in Byzantine Constantinople and Greece at the time, were unavailable in Greek or Latin in Western Europe. Gerard of Cremona is the most important translator among the Toledo School of Translators who invigorated Western medieval Europe in the twelfth century by transmitting the Arabs' and ancient Greeks' knowledge in astronomy, medicine and other sciences, by making the knowledge available in Latin. One of Gerard's most famous translations is of Ptolemy's Almagest from Arabic texts found in Toledo.[2]

Confusingly, there appear to have been two translators of Arabic text into Latin known as Gerard of Cremona. The first was active in the 12th century and concentrated on astronomy and other scientific works, while the second was active in the 13th century and concentrated on medical works.

  1. ^ Inventions et decouvertes au Moyen-Age, Samuel Sadaune, p. 44.
  2. ^ Kunitzsch, Paul (May 1986). "The Star Catalogue Commonly Appended to the Alfonsine Tables". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 17 (2): 89. doi:10.1177/002182868601700202. ISSN 0021-8286. Retrieved 11 April 2022. Gerard of Cremona's Latin translation made in Toledo about 1175 from the Arabic