Lot Essay
The colophon states that the scribe Ahmad ibn Ahmad ibn Salamah al-? Sanhaja al-? is the pupil of the teacher Abu Ishaq Ya'qub ibn Ishaq ibn Ya'qub known as Ibu al-(?) Qursuma al-Isra'ili munajjim (astronomer) of Dom Pedro the king of Aragon and governor of Barcelona. The colophon is confusing as to the origin of this manuscript as it gives the name of the town as Saragossa (?) but in Andalus.
The manuscript is dated three times, on ff. 145r. and 157v., with the dates 9 and 29 Jumada I 783 and in the colophon 18 Jumada II 783. The colophon also translates the year of completion of the work into the Christian era. In addition, an indistinct Caliphal date is mentioned.
Many of the pages of this manuscript have the watermark of a slender axe, a paper produced in Florence in 1379. (Piccard, G.: Wasserzeichen, Werkzeug und Waffen, no. 788, Stuttgart, 1980).
Andalusia at this time was well established as a centre of study for astronomy and other sciences. Gerard of Cermona (d. 1187) travelled to Spain to study Ptolemy's Almagest and translate it from the Arabic. Pedro IV of Aragon, El Ceremonio, was born in Balaguer in 1319 and died in Barcelona in 1387. He was interested in science and followed the ideas of Ramon Llull (1235-1315), a philosopher with some interest in astronomy and the Arabic language.
The manuscript is dated three times, on ff. 145r. and 157v., with the dates 9 and 29 Jumada I 783 and in the colophon 18 Jumada II 783. The colophon also translates the year of completion of the work into the Christian era. In addition, an indistinct Caliphal date is mentioned.
Many of the pages of this manuscript have the watermark of a slender axe, a paper produced in Florence in 1379. (Piccard, G.: Wasserzeichen, Werkzeug und Waffen, no. 788, Stuttgart, 1980).
Andalusia at this time was well established as a centre of study for astronomy and other sciences. Gerard of Cermona (d. 1187) travelled to Spain to study Ptolemy's Almagest and translate it from the Arabic. Pedro IV of Aragon, El Ceremonio, was born in Balaguer in 1319 and died in Barcelona in 1387. He was interested in science and followed the ideas of Ramon Llull (1235-1315), a philosopher with some interest in astronomy and the Arabic language.