Twelfth-Century Latin Translations of Arabic Philosophical Texts on

Transcription

D.N. Hasse 1
Twelfth-Century Latin Translations of Arabic Philosophical Texts on the
Iberian Peninsula
D.N. Hasse, Villa Vigoni, 27 June 2013
Translators count among the most influential producers of texts in ancient and
medieval cultures. Their linguistic skills, their learning and diligence, and their
open-mindedness towards the foreign, have left enormous traces in intellectual
history. For some well-known translators, such as Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq in Baghdad
or Gerard of Cremona in Toledo, this is long known to specialists. With his over
70 Latin translations from Arabic, among them Ptolemy’s Almagest and
Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine, Gerard of Cremona composed more Latin text
than most other authors of medieval Latin prose. Medieval university culture
would have looked entirely different without Gerard’s efforts. But in spite of all
this, the translators of ancient and medieval times have not yet received the
place they deserve in historiography. One way to change this, is to lift the
anonymity of translations. We thus come closer to understanding the intellectual
profiles, motives and techniques of these great mediators between cultures.
In a paper published in 2010, I have studied the anonymous Latin translations of
Averroes of the thirteenth century. Among the 17 Averroes translations, twelve
were anonymous. The idea was not to examine the technical vocabulary, but the
translator’s usage of particles and short phrases. The statistical analysis of
particle usage showed that six anonymous translations, and probably a seventh,
were by Michael Scot, three by William of Luna, one by Hermannus Alemannus
and one by an unknown fourth translator. In the present paper, I should like to
try something similar for the twelfth century: for the great Arabic-Latin
translation movement in Spain. Here too we have many anonymous translations.
But the textual situation is more complicated: the translation movement in
Spain is much larger, and the number of anonymous translations is much higher.
Also, there are many Arabic authors involved, not only Averroes. Some
anonymous translations, for instance of texts by al-Kindī, are very short. To
keep the size manageable and the corpus coherent, I decided to concentrate on
philosophical texts, as you can see on the table below – thus excluding other
disciplines such as medicine, astrology, or astronomy.
Twelfth-Century Latin Translations of Arabic Philosophical Texts
on the Iberian Peninsula
anonymous
01-Aristotle, Metaphysics, Alpha Meizôn, fragm.
02-Alexander of Aphrodisias, De intellectu
03-Turba philosophorum
04-al-Kindī, De intellectu
05-al-Kindī, De mutatione temporum
ed. C. Martini
ed. J. Ruska
ed. G. Théry
ed. A. Nagy
ed. G. Bos / C. Burnett
D.N. Hasse 2
06-al-Kindī, De radiis
07-al-Fārābī, De intellectu et intellecto
08-al-Fārābī, Liber exercitationis ad viam felicitatis
09-Ps.-al-Fārābī, Flos (ʿUyūn al-masāʾil)
10-al-Fārābī, Explanation ... of the 5th Book of Euclid
11-Ps.-al-Fārābī, De ortu scientiarum
12-Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ, In artem logicae demonstrationis
13-Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ, Cosmographia
14-Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ, Liber de quatuor confectionibus
15-Isaac Israeli, De definitionibus
16-Avicenna, Isagoge, selections from I and II
17-Avicenna, Physics, I-III
18-Avicenna, De diluviis (Meteora II.6)
19-al-Ġazālī, prologue to Maqāṣid
John of Seville
20-Ps.-Aristotle, Secretum secretorum
21-Qusṭā ibn Lūqā, De differentia spiritus et animae
22-Abū Maʿšar, Great Introduction
Hugo of Santalla
23-Ps.-Apollonius, De secretis
24-Liber Aristotilis de 255 Indorum voluminibus
Gerard of Cremona 25-Aristole, Posterior Analytics
26-Aristotle, Physics
27-Aristotle, De caelo
28-Aristotle, De gen. et corr.
29-Aristotle / Ibn al-Biṭrīq, Meteora I-III
30-Ps.-Aristotle, Liber de causis
31-Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Sense ...
32-Themistius, Comm. Post. Anal.
33-al-Kindī, De quinque essentiis
34-al-Kindī, De somno
35-al-Kindī, De ratione
36-al-Fārābī, De scientiis
37-Isaac Israeli, De elementis
Avendauth and ?
39-Avicenna, prologue / Isagoge
Gundisalvi and
40-Avicenna, De anima
Avendauth
41-Avicenna, De medicinis cordialibus
Gundisalvi and
42-Ibn Gabirol, Fons vitae
Johannes Hispanus 43- al-Ġazālī, Summa (Maqāṣid)
Gundisalvi
44-Avicenna, Philosophia prima
45- al-Fārābī, De scientiis
46-Avicenna, De convenientia ... scientiarum (from
Post. Anal. of aš-Šifāʾ)
47-Ps.-Avicenna, Liber celi et mundi
Alfred of
48-Nicolaus Damascenus, De plantis
Shareshill
49-Avicenna, De congelatione ... lapidum
ed. M.-T. d’Alverny / F. Hudry
ed. E. Gilson
ed. D. Salman
ed. M. Cruz Hernandez
ed. C. Burnett
ed. C. Baeumker
ed. A. Nagy
ed. P. Gautier-Dalché
ed. A. Sannino
ed. J.T. Muckle
ed. 1508
ed. S. van Riet
ed. M.A. Alonso
ed. D. Salman
ed. H. Suchier
ed. J. Wilcox
ed. R. Lemay
ed. F. Hudry
ed. C. Burnett / D. Pingree
ed. L. Minio-Paluello
mss.
mss.
mss.
ed. P. Schoonheim
ed. A. Pattin
ed. G. Théry
ed. J.R. O’Donnell
ed. A. Nagy
ed. A. Nagy
ed. A. Nagy
ed. F. Schupp
ed. 1515
ed. J.T. Muckle
ed. A. Birkenmajer
ed. S. van Riet
ed. S. van Riet
ed. C. Baeumker
ed. C. Lohr / ed. J.T. Muckle
ed. S. van Riet
ed. M.A. Alonso, repr. Schneider
ed. L. Baur
ed. O. Gutman
ed. H. Drossaart / E. Poortman
ed. E. Holmyard / D. Mandeville
The table lists 19 anonymous translations, plus 30 translations by translators
known to us. Number 22 (Abū Maʿšar) is not a philosophical text in the stricter
sense; I have added it in order to have enough statistical material for John of
Seville, since texts 20 and 21 are rather short. Albumasar’s text leads us to
another problem for anyone who studies twelfth-century translations: revision.
John of Seville’s version of the Great Introduction was revised, perhaps by
Gerard of Cremona, as some have suggested. Other texts, such as al-Fārābī’s
Enumeration of the Sciences (De scientiis) was translated twice, by Gerard of
D.N. Hasse 3
Cremona and Gundisalvi (texts 36 and 45). There is no consensus on which
translation was first; I believe (as Charles Burnett does) that Gundisalvi revised
Gerard’s translation. Isaac’s De definitionibus was also translated twice, by an
anonymous translator and by Gerard (texts 15 and 37). The same is true of alKindī’s On the Intellect (texts 4 and 35). In all three cases, the verbal parallels
between the translations make it likely that one translation in fact is a revision of
the other.
Even if we stay away from these double translations and focus on the others,
there remain enough problems for any attempt to identify anonymous
translators. The troubling question is whether the stylistic signal of the author
(i.e. al-Kindī or al-Fārābī or Avicenna) will be stronger than the translator signal
– whether, for instance, Fārābī-translations will group together in Latin, even if
they are by different translators. And I have to say there was a moment in April
of this year when I almost despaired and I thought that I won’t have anything to
present at the Villa Vigoni. I will show you why. Fortunately, the story took a
different direction.
What is the status quaestionis? As I see it, there were two major steps in
research on this issue. First, Manuel Alonso’s analysis of Dominicus
Gundisalvi’s translation style in two papers of the 1940s and 1950s, on the basis
of which Alonso ascribed several anonymous translations to Gundisalvi (or the
tandem Gundisalvi / Johannes Hispanus). Second, Charles Burnett’s research on
the translators in Spain. To turn to Alonso’s results first: In a magisterial article
of 1955, Alonso compared, on 59 densely written pages, the “coincidencias
verbales tipicas” in the works and translations by Gundisalvi, comparing the
Arabic and the Latin. This article is full of interesting material. For the present
purpose it is most relevant that Alonso bases his ascriptions on 34 typical words
and phrases:
multivocum, astrologia / astronomia, parificare, minus commune, credulitas /
credere, solet, in sensibilibus, habens, designare / designatus / designatio,
concomitari, maneria, fortassis, materiare, enim, caelatura, si ... aut,
intellectus, intentio, vicissitudinantur, quadrivialia, dapsilis, aequidistantia,
mediante, anitas, diversificare, appendiciae, propalare, numerus surdus,
assolare, hylearis, elongatio, transumere / transumptive, imaginatio, et
omnino
On this basis, Alonso ascribes nine anonymous translations to Gundisalvi – the
other anonymous translations in my list are not discussed by Alonso:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Manuel Alonso Alonso:
anonymous translations ascribed to Gundisalvi
Coincidencias verbales típicas en las obras y traducciones
de Gundisalvo, in: Al-Andalus 20 (1955), 129-152, 345-379
D.N. Hasse 4
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The evidence collected by Alonso is impressive. Whether we are convinced by
it, depends on the standards we demand from stylistic analysis. One drawback of
Alonso’s studies is that he does not compare Gundisalvi’s style with that of any
other translator on the Iberian peninsula. Once you start comparing, the result is
disillusioning. The rare Latin term parificare, for instance, one of the words
picked out by Alonso, is used by Gundisalvi, but also by Gerard of Cremona and
Hugo of Santalla, as the following table shows:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
parificaANON_01ArisMetAlpha:.....................0
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................0
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_05KindiDeMutatTemp:.................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................0
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................0
''''_08FarabiAdViamFelicitatis:..........0
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................2
''''_11PsFarabiDeOrtuScien:..............0
''''_12IkhwanInArtemLogicae:.............0
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................0
''''_14IkhwanDeQuattuorConf:.............0
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................0
''''_16AvicIsagogeI-II_QUOTES:...........0
''''_17AvicPhys:.........................3
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
''''_19GazaliProlMaqasid:................0
John_20PsArisSecretum:...................0
D.N. Hasse 5
''''_21QustaDeDifferentia:...............0
''''_22AlbumasarIntroductorium:..........0
Hugo_23PsAppolDeSecretis:................1
''''_24LiberAristotilis:.................0
Gerard_25ArisPostAn:.....................0
''''''_29ArisMeteoraI-III:...............0
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................1
''''''_31AlexanderDeMotu:................0
''''''_32ThemistiusPostAn:...............1
''''''_33KindiDeQuinqueEssentiis:........0
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................0
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_36FarabiDeScientiis:..............0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
Avendauth_39AvicProlIsagogeI:............0
Gundisalvi_40AvicDeAnima:................2
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............0
''''''''''_42GabirolFonsVitae:...........1
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:................0
''''''''''_44AvicMet:...................13
''''''''''_45FarabiDeScientiis:..........1
''''''''''_46AvicConvenientiaScien:......0
''''''''''_47PsAvicLiberCeli:............0
Alfred_48NicolausDePlantis:..............0
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
To give further examples: credulitas appears five times in Gerard’s translation
of the Posterior Analytics. designare and its cognates is absent in Gerard, but
used by John of Seville and Hugo of Santalla. fortassis appears in John, Hugo
and Alfred. aequidistare is used by Gerard in his Themistius translation.
mediante appears in John, Hugo and Gerard. elongatio is used by Alfred and
Gerard. imaginatio is used in various writings by Gerard. et omnino – which is a
wonderfully stylistic term, that appears often in Gundisalvi’s writings –
unfortunately is used also by John and Gerard. And, a final example:
diuersificare is a term which regularly appears in Gerard’s translations.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
diuersificaANON_01ArisMetAlpha:.....................0
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................0
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................1
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................0
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................0
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................0
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................0
''''_17AvicPhys:........................25
D.N. Hasse 6
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
Hugo_23PsAppolDeSecretis:................0
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................7
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................2
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............0
''''''''''_42GabirolFonsVitae:..........24
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:................3
''''''''''_44AvicMet:....................4
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
What these tables show, is that Alonso has successfully unearthed terms
preferred by Gundisalvi, but not necessarily terms typical of Gundisalvi. Hence,
Alonso’s studies were a great advance, because he was able to offer many
indications buttressing his hypothesis that Gundisalvi was in fact responsible for
a greater set of translations than we knew before. But these indications are of
limited validity. Alonso’s evidence for author attribution is not conclusive.
From Charles Burnett we have many important studies on the translation
movement in Spain: on the various translators, on the coherence of the
translation programme, and on the differentiation between the two “Johns”
involved: between John of Seville (Iohannes Hispalensis), the translator of at
least 14 works mainly of astrology and astronomy in the 1120s and 1130s, and,
on the other hand, the collaborator of Gundisalvi on two translations, John of
Spain (Iohannes Hispanus, d. 1215), who possibly was the successor of
Gundisalvi as archdeacon of Cuéllar. The older research, including Alonso’s, is
still full of confusion about these Johns. The starting-point for my inquiry was
Burnett’s list of Arabic-Latin philosophical translations, which was published in
2005. 1 These are his careful comments on the presumed translators:
1
Charles Burnett, ‘Arabic into Latin: the Reception of Arabic Philosophy into Western
Europe’, in P. Adamson, R. Taylor, eds, Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy
(Cambridge, 2005) 370-404, here 391-400.
D.N. Hasse 7
anonymous translation
Burnett’s comments
perhaps the same translator as 06
Gundisalvi (?)
anonymous
Gundisalvi (?)
anonymous
perhaps the same translator as 01
Gundisalvi (?)
Gundisalvi (?)
anonymous
Gundisalvi (?)
Gundisalvi (?)
anonymous
anonymous
anonymous
Gundisalvi (?)
unknown, not Gundisalvi
unknown, Toledan (?)
Alfred of Shareshill (?)
anonymous
Burnett follows Alonso’s suggestions on texts 2,4,7,8,12 and 15, but adds a
cautious question mark.
Who were the translators of these treatises? Who was responsible for
transporting al-Kindī’s, al-Fārābī’s and Avicenna’s work to the Latin West?
John of Seville was mainly active in the region of the Limia valley in northern
Portugal. Hugo of Santalla, in all likelihood, was a canon of the cathedral of
Tarazona. Gerard of Cremona and Dominicus Gundisalvi were canons of the
cathedral of Toledo, and Alfred of Shareshill was probably active in Toledo
towards the end of the twelfth century. Hence, the importance of Toledo as a
centre for Arabic-Latin translations also depends upon whether we can solve the
issue of anonymous translations.
I – Computational Stylistics
What I tried to do in the past two years, was to find a solution to the attribution
problem by approaching it from two sides: from a philological side and from a
computational side. That is, I tried to apply the philological method I had used
for the Averroes translations: studying non-technical, non-disciplinary
vocabulary, particles and short phrases, everyday words. On the other hand, I
tried to study the corpus of translations with the help of the computer. In the fall
of 2011, my colleague in digital humanities at Würzburg University, Fotis
Jannidis, directed my attention to the most advanced computational stylistics
programme available at the moment: the script “Stylo”, which was written with
D.N. Hasse 8
the statistics software “R” by two Polish scholars of the University of Krakow:
Maciej Eder and Jan Rybicki. The script was published 2011 in a Stanford paper
and is since freely available on the net. 2
The script written by Eder and Rybicki is designed to make author attributions
on the basis of the analysis of the most frequent words of the text. In this
analysis of texts of British Fiction, which you can see here, the script has
compared the 100 most frequent words of the 27 individual texts, then the 200
most frequent words, then the 300 most frequent words and so forth until 5000.
It then performs distance calculations to produce graphs of distances between
the texts.
2
Eder, M. and Rybicki, J. (2011). Stylometry with R. Digital Humanities 2011: Conference
Abstracts. Stanford University, Stanford, pp. 308-11.
D.N. Hasse 9
As you will see at the end of my paper, the Stylo script is extremely helpful, but
at some crucial point, it had to strike the flag. I had to return to the method
which I had used for analysing the Averroes translations. The conclusive
evidence for the twelfth-century translations, as you will see, will come from the
philological judgement about the evidence provided by particles and short
phrases.
I did not do this alone. I was assisted by Andreas Büttner, a student in
philosophy and musicology, whom I had hired for working on the Arabic-Latin
Glossary, but who turned out to be gifted programmer as well. Andreas Büttner
has worked long on creating a digitalized and fully searchable corpus of these 49
texts. He has invested much effort in standardizing the Latin as far as possible.
To extinguish scanning mistakes, he has sent the texts time and again to a server
in Berlin, where the texts were checked against the Perseus Latin dictionary (by
Gregory Crane), to which he added his own list of non-classical words of the
translation literature. In the end, the two dictionaries together recognized a high
percentage of the text as correct Latin, as this table shows:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
quality and length of the scanned Latin texts
DATEI
01_ANON_01ArisMetAlpha.txt
02_ANON_02AlexDeIntell.txt
03_ANON_03Turba.txt
04_ANON_04KindiDeIntell.txt
05_ANON_05KindiDeMutatTemp.txt
06_ANON_06KindiDeRadiis.txt
07_ANON_07FarabiDeIntell.txt
08_ANON_08FarabiAdViamFelicitatis.txt
09_ANON_09PsFarabiFlos.txt
10_ANON_10FarabiEuclid.txt
11_ANON_11PsFarabiDeOrtuScien.txt
12_ANON_12IkhwanInArtemLogicae.txt
13_ANON_13IkhwanCosmo.txt
14_ANON_14IkhwanDeQuattuorConf.txt
15_ANON_15IsaacDeDefin.txt
16_ANON_16AvicIsagogeI-II_QUOTES.txt
17_ANON_17AvicPhys.txt
18_ANON_18AvicDeDiluviis.txt
19_ANON_19GazaliProlMaqasid.txt
20_John_20PsArisSecretum.txt
21_John_21QustaDeDifferentia.txt
22_John_22AlbumasarIntroductorium.txt
23_Hugo_23PsApollDeSecretis.txt
24_Hugo_24LiberAristotilis.txt
25_Gerard_25ArisPostAn.txt
29_Gerard_29ArisMeteoraI-III.txt
30_Gerard_30PsArisDeCausis.txt
31_Gerard_31AlexanderDeMotu.txt
32_Gerard_32ThemistiusPostAn.txt
33_Gerard_33KindiDeQuinqueEssentiis.txt
34_Gerard_34KindiDeSomno.txt
35_Gerard_35KindiDeRatione.txt
36_Gerard_36FarabiDeScientiis.txt
LAENGE
499
3345
18682
806
10241
9150
4075
6567
822
2277
2207
6008
4720
1891
4452
966
59724
838
414
1557
4481
109251
47085
39133
31879
15955
7194
4484
34126
2291
3081
733
15106
FEHLER
16
19
392
7
290
171
65
92
2
68
24
42
372
112
49
10
339
16
12
40
47
1530
693
952
187
311
78
32
216
14
57
7
280
QUAL
97%
99%
98%
99%
97%
98%
98%
99%
100%
97%
99%
99%
92%
94%
99%
99%
99%
98%
97%
97%
99%
99%
99%
98%
99%
98%
99%
99%
99%
99%
98%
99%
98%
D.N. Hasse 10
38_Gerard_38IsaacDeDefin.txt
39_Avendauth_39AvicProlIsagogeI.txt
40_Gundisalvi_40AvicDeAnima.txt
41_Gundisalvi_41AvicDeMedCord.txt
42_Gundisalvi_42GabirolFonsVitae.txt
43_Gundisalvi_43GazaliSumma.txt
44_Gundisalvi_44AvicMet.txt
45_Gundisalvi_45FarabiDeScientiis.txt
46_Gundisalvi_46AvicConvenientiaScien.txt
47_Gundisalvi_47PsAvicLiberCeli.txt
48_Alfred_48NicolausDePlantis.txt
49_Alfred_49AvicLapid.txt
SUMME
7124
1702
65109
3467
71182
57578
109383
6900
2192
12317
10175
1666
802835
96
87
468
44
378
753
494
54
12
45
182
61
9216
99%
95%
99%
99%
99%
99%
100%
99%
99%
100%
98%
96%
99%
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In a next step, Andreas Büttner created a surface to improve the workflow of
analysing the text corpus with Stylo. One of the two authors of Stylo, Jan
Rybicki, had tried to identify English-Polish, French-Polish and French-English
and English-French translators with the Stylo script.3 But his disappointing
conclusion was that translators are condemned to stylometric invisibility.
Multivariate analysis of most frequent words cannot tell translator from
translator, because the texts usually cluster around the author rather than the
translator.
When we met Maciej Eder and Jan Rybicki last year at a conference, they
were surprised when we showed them the following consensus tree, which
contains all texts with known Arabic-Latin translators (with the exception of
Avendauth):
3
Rybicki, J. (2012). The great mystery of the (almost) invisible translator: stylometry in
translation. In M. Oakley and M. Ji (eds.), Quantitative Methods in Corpus-Based Translation
Studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 231-248
D.N. Hasse 11
In principle, the Stylo script is able to differentiate between Gundisalvi, Gerard,
John of Seville, Hugo and Alfred. One problem is al-Fārābī’s De scientiis. But
this is explainable, since one of the two translations is a revision of the other.
Note that Alfred’s translation of the section On Stones and Minerals of
Avicenna’s aš-Šifāʾ does not group together with the many other texts from ašŠifāʾ translated by Gundisalvi. The author signal in this case is not stronger than
the translator signal. A second problem is John of Seville’s translation of the
Secretum secretorum. Why does it not group with the other translations by John
of Seville but with Hugo of Santalla? I believe this is the case because Hugo of
Santalla’s translations, and in particular his translation of Pseudo-Apollonius
(Bālīnūs) On the Secrets of Nature, are too close in topic and language to the
Secretum secretorum. A third problem is Avendauth’s translation of the
prologue to aš-Šifāʾ, which is too short to be relevant for statistical analysis.
D.N. Hasse 12
When we leave out Avendauth and the two versions of al-Fārābī’s De scientiis
translations, we arrive at the following beautiful consensus tree, which served as
our standard for analysis of the anonymous texts:
Standard Consensus Tree
Let me briefly comment on the statistical parameters which produce this tree. At
the bottom of the tree, you see the parameters we chose in the end, after trying
out many others. The translator attribution rests on an analysis of the most
frequent 50 words, then 100 words, 150 and so forth words until 1000 words,
and on combining these results. “Culled @ 20-80%” means: The most frequent
words considered are only those shared by at least 20% of all texts (again
moving upwards until 80% and combining the results) – thus excluding words
that appear only in certain disciplines of philosophy. “Eder Delta” is a distance
function (metric) used to measure the distance between the most frequent wordlists of the individual texts. “Consensus 0.5” means that the consensus tree
D.N. Hasse 13
makes a direct linkage between two texts if that linkage appears in at least 50%
of the analyses.
We chose this consensus tree as our calibrated standard. Once we had this
standard, we could add anonymous translations. For some anonymous
translations, the results are clear, for others they are not. I shall begin with an
example for a case in which the computer is completely at a loss.
19 Chaotic Consensus Tree: al-Ġazālī, Maqāṣid
This is the Standard Consensus Tree plus one anonymous text: the very brief
introduction by al-Ġazālī to the Maqāṣid. The Gundisalvi branch remains intact,
as do the John, Alfred and Hugo branches, but the Gerard branch has been
turned into chaos. Why one small text has such an effect on the rest of the tree,
is difficult to tell. It is a reminder that all results proposed by the Stylo script are
in need of philological counter-checking.
D.N. Hasse 14
But there are also very convincing results, which I now present to you in
numerical sequence. I leave out text number one, which is too short. I proceed to
Alexander of Aphrodisias, De intellectu:
02 Consensus tree: Alexander of Aphrodisias, De intellectu
I also pass by consensus trees for the texts 3,4,5 and 6, because here again the
position in the tree is ambiguous.
D.N. Hasse 15
07 Consensus tree: al-Fārābī, De intellectu et intellecto
Text 8 creates a chaotic tree. But case 9 is indicative:
D.N. Hasse 16
09 Consensus tree: Ps.-al-Fārābī, ʿUyūn al-masāʾil, Flos / Fontes
questionum
D.N. Hasse 17
10 Consensus tree: al-Fārābī, Explanation of the 5th book of Euclid
Text 11 again has an ambiguous position in the tree.
D.N. Hasse 18
12 Consensus tree: al-Fārābī, In artem logicae demonstrationis
Texts 13, 14, 15 again are placed ambiguously between authors.
D.N. Hasse 19
16 Consensus tree: Avicenna, Isagoge of aš-Šifāʾ
D.N. Hasse 20
17 Consensus tree: Avicenna, Physics of aš-Šifāʾ
18 is again ambiguously placed. 19 (al-Ġazālī, Maqāṣid) – as we have seen –
results in a chaotic tree.
Hence, in 7 of the 19 cases, we receive an unambiguous result, when
analysing the texts with the Stylo script. The results can be summarized as
follows:
01-Aristotle, Metaphysics, Alpha Meizôn
08-al-Fārābī, Liber exerc. ad viam felicitatis
Alonso
Stylo
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gerard of Cremona
D.N. Hasse 21
10-al-Fārābī, Explanation ... of Euclid
12-Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ, In artem logicae demon.
14-Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ, De 4 confectionibus
16-Avicenna, Isagoge, I-II
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Stylo supports several suggestions by Alonso, with the exception of Pseudo-alFārābī’s Flos (ʿUyūn al-masāʾil), which Stylo groups with the translations of
Gerard of Cremona, and not with those of Gundisalvi. Moreover, Stylo furnishes
evidence that al-Fārābī’s commentary on the fifth book of Euclid (text 10) was a
translation by Gundisalvi.
II – Philological Analysis
At this point, it was clear that philological confirmation was needed to arrive at
more definite results. As remarked above, Alonso’s philological studies had
unearthed terms which were preferred by one translator (Gundisalvi), but not
necessarily typical of that translator. Hence, I now began to search for terms or
phrases that are not only preferred by, but exclusively used by individual
translators. From my reading of the texts, I had noticed that Gundisalvi preferred
the phrase quantum ad. Using a search tool written by Andreas Büttner, I then
checked my corpus for this phrase. This is the result:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
quantum ad (translating: bi-l-qiyās ilā)
ANON_01ArisMetAlpha:.....................0
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................0
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................1
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................2
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................1
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................0
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................0
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................0
''''_17AvicPhys:........................40
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
D.N. Hasse 22
Hugo_23PsApollDeSecretis:................0
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................0
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................0
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
Gundisalvi_40AvicDeAnima:...............11
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............1
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:...............36
''''''''''_44AvicMet:...................52
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
You can see immediately that the intuition was correct: Gundisalvi has a liking
for the phrase. It appears in a good number of anonymous translations too. But
unfortunately it also appears in translations by John of Seville and Hugo of
Santalla – even if very rarely.
In a next step, I asked Andreas Büttner to write a programme which makes
the computer search only in the texts firmly attributed to the six translators and
make lists with the terms that only appear in one translator. We then arrived at
six lists with words that appear only in Avendauth, Hugo, Alfred, Gerard, John
or Gundisalvi respectively. I wanted to know the following: How many such
words that appear singularly with one translator are shared by each of the 19
anonymous translations? We prepared a table which gives the number of such
exclusive words shared by the anonymous translators. I had hoped that we
would now see immediately which translation was produced by which translator
– but that was not the case:
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––
How many words used only by a single translator
are shared by the anonymous translations?
ANON_01ArisMetAlpha:
ANON_02AlexDeIntell:
ANON_03Turba:
ANON_04KindiDeIntell:
ANON_05KindiDeMutatTemp:
ANON_06KindiDeRadiis:
ANON_07FarabiDeIntell:
ANON_08FarabiAdViamFelicitatis:
ANON_09FarabiFlos:
Avendauth
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Hugo
4
25
115
6
87
90
24
43
9
Alfred
2
1
16
0
3
7
0
7
0
Gerard
17
58
137
40
117
102
62
89
60
John Gundisalvi
19
55
47
442
148
592
22
110
364
304
143
546
56
574
82
389
22
87
D.N. Hasse 23
ANON_10FarabiEuclid:
ANON_11PsFarabiDeOrtuScien:
ANON_12IkhwanInArtemLogicae:
ANON_13IkhwanCosmo:
ANON_14IkhwanDeQuattuorConf:
ANON_15IsaacDeDefin:
ANON_16AvicIsagogeI-II_QUOTES:
ANON_17AvicPhys:
ANON_18AvicDeDiluviis:
ANON_19GazaliProlMaqasid:
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
37
26
36
26
12
29
15
152
7
8
2
4
7
3
2
4
0
31
1
0
51
52
139
57
33
212
26
436
28
10
50
46
94
114
59
66
21
289
35
20
224
255
629
158
81
380
154
4308
89
35
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Unfortunately, the anonymous translations share exclusive words with almost all
translators – safe for Avendauth, whose text is too short to be of any statistical
relevance. This table is therefore very disappointing. It does not say anything.
The high numbers of Gundisalvi may simply reflect that his translations are
rather long compared with others (Avicenna’s Metaphysics, Avicenna’s De
anima, Fons vitae etc).
At this point, I thought it may turn out that the task is impossible and that it
will not be possible to identify the anonymous translators of twelfth-century
Spain – in contrast to the translators of Averroes, which formed a corpus much
more coherent in length and content. But a few days later I looked again at the
lists with characteristic words of single translators. Here is an example of such a
list:
–––––––––––––––––––––––
Phrases used only by Gundisalvi
ullo modo, (178x)
sustinet praedicamenta, (177x)
substantia composita, (127x)
et deinde, (109x)
sic ut, (106x)
forma intelligentiae, (93x)
substantiae simplicis, (88x)
facit debere, (86x)
debere esse, (81x)
uel est, (80x)
hoc m, (76x)
debet ut, (75x)
substantia simplici, (66x)
omnes formae, (64x)
a forma, (64x)
praedictum est, (62x)
habeat esse, (60x)
essentia substantiae, (60x)
factor primus, (54x)
quia forma, (53x)
inter se, (51x)
formae sunt, (51x)
omnes formas, (50x)
cum forma, (50x)
substantia intelligentiae, (49x)
m si, (48x)
autem dixerit, (48x)
D.N. Hasse 24
substantiarum simplicium, (47x)
potest autem, (47x)
substantiam quae, (46x)
forma uniuersalis, (45x)
in imaginatione, (44x)
d quid, (44x)
haec substantia, (44x)
formae sensibiles, (43x)
materia quae, (42x)
quod intelligitur, (41x)
alio a, (41x)
formae uniuersalis, (41x)
materia prima, (41x)
ut forma, (41x)
sustinentur in, (41x)
est m, (40x)
suae essentiae, (40x)
quod quicquid, (40x)
–––––––––––––––––
Some of the words in the list are content words, such as substantia composita,
which are typical of a topic or a discipline, but others are stylistic, such as et
deinde. The computer cannot differentiate between content words and purely
stylistic words. Content words have a tendency to travel from one author to the
other, but stylistic words are much more stable. Some of them are highly
characteristic of one person writing. I therefore shifted my focus again on small
words and phrases that do not contain any content words. Such as et deinde:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
et deinde (translating: ṯumma)
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................1
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................0
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................5
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................0
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:.....................10
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................4
''''_17AvicPhys:.........................6
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
D.N. Hasse 25
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................0
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................0
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............0
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:...............23
''''''''''_44AvicMet:...................54
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
This phrase appears in many Gundisalvi translations (except for the very short
De medicinis cordialibus) – regardless, in fact, whether Gundisalvi was
translating with another person or not. et deinde never appears in the
philosophical translations of John, Hugo, Gerard, Avendauth and Alfred. But et
deinde appears in the anonymous translations 2, 7, 12, 13, 15,16, 17. This is a
first hint to a large group of anonymous translations deriving from Gundisalvi.
There are other stylistic phrases typical of Gundisalvi, which are never used
by the other six translators, but shared by a larger group of anonymous
translations. One such phrase is postquam autem:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
postquam autem (translating: fa-iḏā)
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................0
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................0
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................1
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................0
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................0
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................1
''''_17AvicPhys:.........................4
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
D.N. Hasse 26
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................0
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................0
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............0
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:...............18
''''''''''_44AvicMet:...................41
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
postquam autem is shared by the anonymous translations 7, 12, 15, 17.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
inter se (translating: baʿḍ li-baʿḍ)
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................0
''''_03Turba:............................2
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................2
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................0
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................0
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................0
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................0
''''_17AvicPhys:.........................9
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
D.N. Hasse 27
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................0
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................0
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............0
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:...............14
''''''''''_44AvicMet:...................10
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
inter se is shared by the anonymous translations 3, 5, 6, 11, 12, 17, 19.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
secundum hoc quod
(translating: min ḥayṯu or min ǧihā mā or bi-mā)
ANON_01ArisMetAlpha:................ .....0
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................3
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................0
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................0
''''_09PsFarabiFlos:.....................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................2
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................0
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................0
''''_17AvicPhys:........................25
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................0
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................0
D.N. Hasse 28
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............3
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:................5
''''''''''_44AvicMet:...................43
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
secundum hoc quod is shared by the anonymous translations 2, 5, 10, 16, 17 –
but also once by Gerard.
So far I have discussed only two-word- or three-word-phrases, but there is
also a particle which is very distinctive of Gundisalvi: idcirco.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
idcirco (translating li-ḏālika)
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................0
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................2
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................0
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................4
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................0
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................3
''''_17AvicPhys:........................10
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................0
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................0
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
D.N. Hasse 29
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............0
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:...............22
''''''''''_44AvicMet:....................5
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
idcirco is shared by the anonymous translations 6, 8,10, 11, 15 and 17. From
these tables, it is clear that the stylistic phrases et deinde, postquam autem, inter
se, secundum hoc quod and idcirco are highly characteristic of Gundisalvi. I
now saw the exciting prospect of tracking the whole range of Gundisalvi’s
philosophical translations.
Instead of showing you more tables for single phrases exclusive of
Gundisalvi, I now choose a different way of presenting the evidence. I will give
you a conspectus of all stylistic words I have tracked in Gundisalvi, noting
which of these words appear in which anonymous translations. This is it:
D.N. Hasse 30
08-al-Fārābī, Liber exerc. ad viam felicitates
words and phrases shared with Gundisalvi
et deinde, uel est, sic ut, opus fuit, est hoc quod, potest
autem, et etiam quia, est eo quod, secundum hoc quod,
non est autem, in actu, id in quo
inter se, cur non, habet esse, nullo modo, est eo quod,
opus est
uel est, non est autem, in actu
inter se, in tantum quod, secundum hoc quod, in actu
inter se, idcirco, probatum, sic ut, praedictum est, non
est autem
et deinde, postquam autem, uel est, opus fuit, id cuius,
nullo modo, non est autem
idcirco, probatum
idcirco, ullo modo, uel est, tunc esset, praedictum est,
secundum hoc quod, in actu
inter se, opus fuit, dictio de
et deinde, postquam autem, inter se, idcirco, uel est,
hoc est scilicet, sic ut, est hoc quod, non est necesse,
non est autem, sine dubio, opus est, id in quo
et deinde, et etiam quia
et deinde, postquam autem, idcirco, in tantum quod, si
quis autem, habet esse, sine dubio
et deinde, secundum hoc quod, non est autem, in actu
et deinde, postquam autem, inter se, idcirco, in tantum
quod, cur non, ullo modo, hoc est scilicet, probatum,
sic ut, opus fuit, tunc esset, est hoc quod, non est
necesse, id cuius, potest autem, dictio de, si quis
autem, et etiam quia, habet esse, nullo modo,
secundum hoc quod, non est autem, sine dubio, in actu,
opus est, id in quo
in tantum quod, tunc esset, est hoc quod, id cuius
inter se, hoc est scilicet, non est autem
This is clearly the most indicative table of the entire paper. The words and
phrases in recte never appear in any text by the other five translators. The words
in italics appear once in another translator – but only once, not even twice.
Hence, the words in italics are not as exclusively Gundisalvian as are the words
in recte. But together they pile up much evidence – evidence that Dominicus
Gundisalvi in fact was responsible for a very large number of Arabic-Latin
translations. In two cases, the evidence is scant, namely for texts 8 and 13: alFārābī, Liber exercitationis ad viam felicitatis, and Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ,
Cosmographia. These two texts share only two phrases with Gundisalvi, even
though they are not particularly short. But with respect to the other texts, the
evidence for Gundisalvi is strong, even in case of the brief texts 4 (al-Kindī’s On
the intellect), 18 (Avicenna, De diluviis) and 19 (al-Ġazālī, prologue to the
Maqāṣid).
D.N. Hasse 31
It is remarkable that three texts do not contain any stylistic words or phrases
typical of Gundisalvi: texts 1, 9 and 14. There is an answer to this. Let us turn to
the evidence of stylistic words for other translators: Gerard of Cremona, John of
Seville, Hugo of Santalla and Alfred of Shareshill. Here comes a phrase typical
of Gerard of Cremona:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
secundum semitam
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................0
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................0
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................0
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................2
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................0
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................0
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................0
''''_17AvicPhys:.........................0
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
Gerard_25ArisPostAn:....................31
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................0
''''''_32ThemistiusPostAn:..............25
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................1
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............0
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:................0
''''''''''_44AvicMet:....................0
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
D.N. Hasse 32
At the beginning, it proved difficult to find small words and phrases that are
typical of Gerard’s translations and used only by him, because Gerard’s style is
much smoother and less idiosyncratic than Gundisalvi’s. Gerard shares many
stylistic words with one or the other fellow translator. But further searching led
to the following phrases:
07-al-Fārābī, De intellectu et intellect
words and phrases shared with GERARD OF
CREMONA
(propterea quia, praeter quod, secundum semitam, et
neque, et propter illud, per sermonem, demonstratio
super, et nos quidem, quoniam quando, nisi quoniam,
et illud quidem, et scientia quidem, quod est quia,
neque est, secundum duos modos)
secundum semitam, per sermonem, demonstratio
super, et scientia quidem, neque est, secundum duos
modos
praeter quod
Note that the negative evidence in this table for Gerard’s translations supports
the positive evidence of Gundisalvi’s table, which we have seen before. This
strongly supports the finding that text 14 (Ps.-al-Fārābī, ʿUyūn al-masāʾil) –
which contained none of the words typical of Gundisalvi – was translated by
Gerard.
Let us turn to John of Seville:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
quoque ac (translating: wa) (in lists)
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................0
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................0
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................0
D.N. Hasse 33
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................0
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................0
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................0
''''_17AvicPhys:.........................0
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
''''_22AlbumasarIntroductorium:.........46
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................0
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................0
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............0
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:................0
''''''''''_44AvicMet:....................0
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
As I said at the beginning, Albumasar’s Great Introduction was added to our
group of sources, in spite of its mainly astrological content, because we needed
to increase the textual basis for John of Seville in our corpus. quoque ac is not
used by any other Arabic-Latin translator of philosophical texts in the twelfth
century. At this point, it is worth consulting the Online Arabic and Latin
Glossary and searching for quoque ac among the quotations cited in this
lexicon. Even here, in this much larger group of translators from the eleventh to
the thirteenth century, quoque ac always leads us to translations known to derive
from John of Seville – which confirms the evidence of the present method. This
is the table with words and phrases used exclusively by John of Seville:
words and phrases shared with JOHN OF
SEVILLE
(quoque ac, cumque fuerint, cumque volueris,
D.N. Hasse 34
dicamusque, et patefecimus)
07-al-Fārābī, De intellectu et intellect
08-al-Fārābī, Liber exerc. ad viam felicitates
quoque ac, cumque fuerint, cumque volueris
Among the few stylistic words and phrases which I could isolate for John of
Seville, three appear in text number 14, Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ, De quatuor
confectionibus. This is the final letter of The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, a
magical letter on, among other things, how to catch animals without hunting.
This is a topic which could have interested Hugo of Santalla, who is known as
the translator of about seven texts in astrology, astronomy and the divinatory
sciences. Hugo would have been a good candidate for the translation of text 14.
But the translator, evidently, was John of Seville, not Hugo of Santalla, as the
following table underlines:
words and phrases shared with HUGO OF
SANTALLA
(potissimum, pariter, aut saltem, deinceps quoque,
tandemque, denuo, itidem, ut uidelicet, dum uidelicet,
hunc quoque, siue potius, plerumque etiam, rursum in,
atque huiusmodi, eo item)
pariter
D.N. Hasse 35
pariter
Hugo of Santalla has long been known as an idiosyncratic stylist. This is
confirmed by the analysis of stylistic particles and phrases. There are many of
them. In fact, Hugo’s list of favourite particles not shared by his fellow
translators could even be longer, if I had continued searching. He has many
stylistic preferences, which are not shared by any of the anonymous texts
discussed here. As a result, we may safely attribute text 14 to the translator John
of Seville.
Now comes our last translator, Alfred of Shareshill:
words and phrases shared with ALFRED OF
SHARESHILL
(ut plurimum, huius signum, fietque, ceterum,
simulque, aliquotiens, ut multum, per multa)
ceterum
aliquotiens
ut plurimum
Alfred of Shareshill is a likely candidate for the translation of texts with
meteorological, mineralogical or botanical content. But texts 5 and 18 (al-Kindī,
De mutatione temporum and Avicenna, De diluviis), which fall into this
category, do not contain any stylistic words typical of Alfred. Again, this table
underlines the above finding that Dominicus Gundisalvi translated also these
treatises.
I am quite clueless as to text 1. Here we may have a translator at work whom
we do not know. Or, it may be that the text is simply too short for the kind of
D.N. Hasse 36
evidence I have been using. The only stylistic feature shared with other
translators, as far as I can see at the moment, is causa huius est:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
causa huius est
''''_02AlexDeIntell:.....................0
''''_03Turba:............................0
''''_04KindiDeIntell:....................0
''''_06KindiDeRadiis:....................0
''''_07FarabiDeIntell:...................0
''''_09FarabiFlos:.......................0
''''_10FarabiEuclid:.....................0
''''_13IkhwanCosmo:......................3
''''_15IsaacDeDefin:.....................0
''''_17AvicPhys:.........................1
''''_18AvicDeDiluviis:...................0
''''''_30PsArisDeCausis:.................0
''''''_34KindiDeSomno:...................0
''''''_35KindiDeRatione:.................0
''''''_38IsaacDeDefin:...................0
''''''''''_41AvicDeMedCord:..............0
''''''''''_43GazaliSumma:................1
''''''''''_44AvicMet:....................2
''''''_49AvicLapid:......................0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Given that we know by now that Gundisalvi was the translator also of texts 13
and 17, the usage of the phrase causa huius est points to Gundisalvi as translator
of text 1 as well.
This leaves us with the following overall result:
D.N. Hasse 37
01-Aristotle, Metaphysics,
Alpha Meizôn
02-Alexander of Aphrodisias,
De intellectu
05-al-Kindī, De mutatione
temporum
07-al-Fārābī, De intellectu et
intellect
08-al-Fārābī, Liber exerc. ad
viam felicitatis
09-Ps.-al-Fārābī, Flos (ʿUyūn almasāʾil)
10-al-Fārābī, Explanation ... of
Euclid
11-Ps.-al-Fārābī, De ortu
scientiarum
12-Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ, In artem
logicae demon.
13-Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ,
Cosmographia
14-Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ, De 4
confectionibus
15-Isaac Israeli, De
definitionibus
18-Avicenna, De diluviis
(Meteora II.6)
19-al-Ġazālī, prologue to
Maqāṣid
Alonso
Stylo
my analysis of particle
usage
perhaps Gundisalvi?
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gerard of
Cremona
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
probably
Gundisalvi
Gerard of Cremona
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
probably Gundisalvi
John of Seville
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Gundisalvi
Upon the evidence of particle usage, Dominicus Gundisalvi was the translator of
14 anonymous translations, probably of 16. If we add text 1, Gundisalvi was the
translator of 17 texts. One translation – that of Pseudo-al-Fārābī’s ʿUyūn almasāʾil, comes from Gerard of Cremona. One translation – that of the final letter
by the Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ – comes from John of Seville. Note that the computational
evidence provided by the Stylo script supports these attributions – even the
attribution of text 9 to Gerard. Manuel Alonso’s analysis of Gundisalvi’s
vocabulary underlines many findings. But since Alonso did not compare the
vocabulary of Gerard of Cremona (or of any other translator), he could not
detect Gerard’s hand in text 9.
D.N. Hasse 38
III – Conclusion
Dominicus Gundisalvi emerges from this study as one of the major Arabic-Latin
translators of the Middle Ages – alongside the other great names Gerard of
Cremona, John of Seville and Michael Scot. Gundisalvi is the key figure for the
transport of al-Fārābī and Avicenna into Latin; and he also contributed much to
the Latin version of al-Kindī – one half of Alkindus Latinus comes from him,
the other half from Gerard of Cremona. We know that, for some translations,
Gundisalvi worked together with Arabic-speaking scholars, such as Avendauth
and the Mozarab Johannes Hispanus. This may also have been the case for the
many anonymous translations that come from him. But in view of the great
experience he must have collected over the years and in view of the fact that his
Latin style remains recognizable, I would surmise that he did a good number of
these translations by himself.
Dominicus Gundisalvi signs several charters (Latin and Mozarabic charters)
between 1162 and 1190. He is archdeacon of Cuellar north of Segovia, but was
resident in Toledo, where he was a canon of the cathedral – where Gerard of
Cremona was canon too, in the very same decades. The attribution of 14 (and
possibly 17) anonymous translations to Gundisalvi adds to the importance of
Toledo, and in particular: of the cathedral of Toledo, in the translation
movement. Gerard of Cremona, of course, the translator of at least 70 texts from
Arabic, among them great works of Greek and Arabic astronomy and medicine,
remains the towering figure. But his fellow canon Gundisalvi also translated
almost 30 texts. In contrast to Gerard, Gundisalvi was a philosophical and
theological author of his own. He was translator and first recipient at the same
time. And in contrast to Gerard, Gundisalvi, when translating, was not interested
in Greek authors transmitted in Arabic, but in Arabic philosophy proper. In this
particular respect, he was immensely important for the history of philosophy of
the Latin West. Without him, I could not have done much of my research – I
could not have written my dissertation, for instance. But, of course, that was not
Gundisalvi’s concern.

Twelfth-Century Latin Translations of Arabic Philosophical Texts on

Transcription

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