Alfonsine Astronomy: The Written Record

Summary Compiled between 1262 and 1272 in Toledo under the patronage of Alfonso X, the Castilian Alfonsine Tables were recast in Paris in the 1320s, resulting in what we now call the Parisian Alfonsine Tables. These materials circulated widely and fostered astronomical activities throughout Europe. This resulted in a significant number of new works, of which there are a few hundred, extant in more than 600 manuscript codices and dozens of printed editions. These manuscripts and imprints, broadly contemporary to the works they witness, comprise the written record of Alfonsine astronomy and provide the focus of this volume. A first series of essays examines individual manuscripts containing Alfonsine works. The authors seek to reconstruct, from the manuscript evidence, the cultural, astronomical and mathematical worlds in which the manuscripts were initially copied, compiled, used and collected. A second series of essays turns from the particular codex to the individual work or author. These contributions ask how particular works have been transmitted in surviving manuscript witnesses and how broader manuscript cultures shaped the diffusion, over two centuries, of Alfonsine astronomy across Europe. A final essay reflects on the challenges and opportunities offered by digital humanities approaches in such collective studies of a large manuscript corpus. TABLE OF CONTENTS Richard L. Kremer, Matthieu Husson and Jos Chab s, Introduction Part I Laura Fern ndez, The Libro de las tablas alfonsies: New Documentary and Material Source Jean-Patrice Boudet, Laure Miolo, Alfonsine Astronomy and Astrology in Fourteenth-Century Oxford: The Case of MS Bodleian Library Digby 176 Richard L. Kremer, Exploring a Later Fifteenth-Century Astrologer's Toolbox: British Library Add Ms 34603 Alexandre Tur, From Computus Material to Preacher's Toolbox: Manufacturing a Bat-Book Almanac in the Fifteenth Century Eric Ram rez-Weaver, Bohemian King Wenceslas IV's Copy of the Alfonsine Tables and Their Place within his Astronomical and Astrological Corpus Part II Jos Chab s, Marie-Madeleine Saby, Editing the Tables of 1322 of John Lign res Alena Hadravov , Petr Hadrava, John of Lign res Quia ad inveniendum loca planetarum: An Edition and Translation Jos Chab s, New Texts and Tables Attributed to John of Lign res: Context and Analysis Mathieu Husson, Work Cohesion as a Test of Manuscript Transmission: The Case of John of Lign res' Tabule magne Laure Miolo, Retracing the Tradition of John of Genoa's Opus astronomicum through Extant Manuscripts Glen Van Brummelen, All In: Manuscripts of the Works of Giovanni Bianchini in the Fifteenth Century Galla Topalian, Mathieu Husson, From Document to Data: The Digital Projects of ALFA