Kepler and Hebrew Astronomical Tables

At least 30 zijes in Hebrew (mostly unpublished) are known, but there has been no survey of them comparable to Kennedy E. S. , A survey of Islamic astronomical tables (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, xlvi/2 (Philadelphia, 1956)). While some Hebrew zijes are translations from either Arabic or Latin, others were composed in Hebrew and may be considered ‘original’. One might consider Abraham Zacut's tables to be an exception to the absence of early editions, for a Latin version of them was published in 1496 in Leiria, Portugal, but the Hebrew text was not printed at the time. See now Chabás J. Goldstein B. R. , Astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula: Abraham Zacut and the transition from manuscript to print (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, xc/2 (Philadelphia, 2000)). Some of these zijes are discussed in Goldstein B. R. , “The survival of Arabic astronomy in Hebrew”, Journal for the history of Arabic science , iii (1979), 31–39; reprinted in idem, Theory and observation in ancient and medieval astronomy (London, 1985), Essay XXI.

Kepler J. , Gesammelte Werke [= KGW], ed. by Caspar M. (20 vols, Munich, 1937–), x, 186: Secutus hac in parte sum Hebraeos Astronomos, quorum Tabulas Hebraico charctere vidi, incedentes per senos Anomaliae Lunae, singulas Elongationis Lunae à Sole gradus.

See Goldstein B. R. , The astronomical table of Levi ben Gerson (Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, xlv (New Haven, 1974)).

Goldstein B. R. , “Abraham Zacut and the medieval Hebrew astronomical tradition”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxix (1998), 177–86, esp. pp. 179–81.

On Ben Verga, see Langermann Y. T. , “Science in the Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula”, in idem, The Jews and the sciences in the Middle Ages (Aldershot, 1999), Essay I, esp. pp. 19–25.

North J. D. , “The Alfonsine Tables in England”, in Prismata , ed. by Maeyama Y. Salzer W. G. (Wiesbaden, 1977), 269–301, esp. pp. 279ff. A list of Latin manuscripts in Oxford with either text or tables appears on p. 299 n. 40. This essay was reprinted in idem. Stars, minds and fate: Essays in ancient and medieval cosmology (London and Ronceverte, 1989), 327–59, esp. pp. 337ff. and 357 n. 40.

The translation by J. D. North is based on Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 432, f. 56v.

This canon is found in Munich, MS Heb. 343, f. 105r-v; and in Oxford, MS Reggio $4, at the bottom of ff. 57b–58b. See also Goldstein , “Survival” (ref. 1), 36.

On f. 3a there are a few inscriptions in both Latin and Hebrew characters that may yield some information on ownership, but they are not easy to read and I have not deciphered them. Langermann reports that there are notes in this manuscript in the hand of Finzi: See Langermann Y. T. , “The scientific writings of Mordekhai Finzi”, Italia , vii (1988), 7–44, esp. pp. 26–28; reprinted in idem, op. cit. (ref. 5), Essay IX. However, the provenance of this manuscript before the twentieth century is unknown, according to a private communication from R. Judd (Bodleian Library, Oxford).

Donahue W. H. , who has just finished a translation of Kepler's Optics: Paralipomena to Witelo & optical part of astronomy (Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, quibus astronomiae pars optica traditur), informed me that Kepler often cites from memory, and that many of the quotations and citations in that work contain small discrepancies similar to the one noted here.

Privately communicated by B. Richler.

Striedl H. , “Geschichte der Hebraica-Sammlung der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek”, in Orientalisches aus Münchener Bibliotheken und Sammlungen , ed. by Franke H. (Wiesbaden, 1957), 1–37, esp. p. 7. For other examples of Widmanstetter's signature, “Joannis Alberti Widmestadij …”, see Striedl H. , “Die Bücherei des Orientalisten Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter”, in Serta monacensia , ed. by Kissling H. J. Schmaus A. (Leiden, 1952), 200–44, esp. plates IV and V.

Riezler S. , “Widmanstetter, Johann Albrecht”, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (56 vols, Leipzig, 1875–1912), xlii, 357–61, where the surname is given as Widmanstetter or Widmestadius, and the variant in the modern literature, “Widmanstadt”, is explained as a back formation from the Latin. See also Swerdlow N. M. Neugebauer O. , Mathematical astronomy in Copernicus's De Revolutionibus (New York and Berlin, 1984), 16–17; and Steiner W. J. , “Clement VII, Pope”, in The new Catholic encyclopedia (19 vols, New York, 1967–79), iii, 931–2.

Copernicus N. , De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (Nuremberg, 1543), f. ij r; Copernicus alludes to this letter in his dedication to Pope Paul III (f. iij r).

Steinschneider M. , Die hebraeischen Handschriften der k. Hof- und Staatsbibliothek in Muenchen (Munich, 1895), 188–95.

KGW (ref. 2), xiv, 260: Die Tabulae resolutae Hebraicae seind diuersorum authorum wie die beylag zu erkhennen gibt. Unnd jch hab seidheero mitt jrer hochfürstlichen Gnaden dem herm Ertzbischouen von Saltzburg dahin gehandlet, das Er die zu sich genomen, unnd da Er anderst yemand taugentlichen bekhomen khan, non parcendo sumptibus, uertieren lassen will, unnd versehenlich würdet, wie dan jre hochfürstliche Gnaden dieselben beraith ein geraume Zeitt bey sich haben. [Note that uertieren comes from the Latin verto, and means “to turn” or “to translate”; versehenlich is not recorded in dictionaries of modern German, but the verb, versehen, can have the meaning “to expect something to be prepared”, from Old High German farsehan meaning hoffend erwarten: See, e.g., Brockhaus Wahrig: Deutsches Wörterbuch , ed. by Wahrig G. , (6 vols, Wiesbaden and Stuttgart, 1980–84), vi, 537.] Seventeenth-century German can be very difficult to translate, and I have depended, in part, on advice from P. Dannhauer (Staatsbibliothek, Munich).

KGW (ref. 2), xv, 463: Ubi lateant Hebraicae tabulae, de quibus M. V. spem fecerat, fore ut à Salisburgensi Episcopo ederentur.

KGW (ref. 2), xvi, 61: Die Tabulae Hebraicae seind noch vnuertiert.

KGW (ref. 2), xvi, 80: Ex tabulis Hebraicis et Sphaera Abrahamj filij Chaja cupio instruere catalogum testium seu observatorum de anni longitudine et similibus. The book mentioned here is Ṣurat ha-areṣ by Abraham bar Ḥiyya (d. c. 1135) that appeared as Sphaera mundi, avtore rabbi Abrahamo hispano filio R. Haijae, Arithmetica secvndvm omnes species suas autore rabbi Elija Orientali, Qvos libros Osvvaldvs Schreckenfuchsius uertit in linguam latinam, Sebastianus uero Munsterus illustravit annotationibus (Basel, 1546); cf. KGW (ref. 2), xvi, 61. For a modern translation of the underlying Hebrew text, see Vallicrosa Millás J. M. , La obra forma de la Tierra de R. Abraham Bar Ḥiyya ha-Bargeloni (Madrid and Barcelona, 1956). In fact, Kepler would not have found anything useful to him in this elementary introduction to astronomy.

The meaning of “resolutae” as used by Herwart in his letter of 1602 is uncertain: There were tables known in Latin as Tabulae Resolutae that depended on the Alfonsine Tables but, as far as I know, they were never translated into Hebrew. See Dobrzycki J. , “The Tabulae Resolutae”, in De astronomia Alphonsi Regis , ed. by Comes M. Puig R. Samsó J. (Barcelona, 1987), 71–77; and Poulle E. Savoie D. , “La survie de l'astronomie Alphonsine”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxix (1998), 201–7, esp. p. 202. In a private communication, N. Swerdlow suggested that “tabulae resolutae” here may just be a generic term for tables that use collected years, single years, months, etc. for mean motions, rather than the pure sexagesimal structure of the Alfonsine Tables (cf. Swerdlow N. M. , “Regiomontanus on the critical problems of astronomy”, in Nature, experiment, and the sciences , ed. by Levere T. H. Shea W. R. (Dordrecht and London, 1990), 165–95, esp. p. 171).

See Albrecht D. , “Hans Georg Hörwarth [Herwart] v. Hohenburg”, in Neue Deutsche Biographie (19 vols, Berlin, 1952–98), viii, 722–3.

KGW (ref. 2), viii, 187. See also p. 189: Diligensis quidam, vt ad me perscriptsit Herwartvs, …. In a note (p. 497), the editors of KGW indicate that Herwart's letter with these data has not been preserved. Cysat published his observations of a comet in 1618: Cysat J. B. , Mathemata astronomica (Ingolstadt, 1619) and, in an appendix to chap. 1 (pp. 10–11), Cysat says that he has seen Kepler's book (published earlier in 1619), that he is indeed the person referred to by Kepler as the observer in Ingolstadt, and he has no idea how Kepler received his observations. Also, J. Lanz (a Jesuit in Munich) wrote a letter to Cysat, dated Munich, 16 June 1619, in which he denies that Herwart received Cysat's observations from him ( KGW , xvii, 358). I am most grateful to Peter Barker for examining the copy of Cysat's book in the library of the University of Oklahoma.

For the translation, see Burke-Gaffney M. W. , Kepler and the Jesuits (Milwaukee, 1944), 119; KGW (ref. 2), xviii, 63–64: Ante biduum, statim uidelicet postquam Dominatio Vestra hac Ratisponam transijt, tulit ad me literas Ederus Typographus, nomine Dominationis Vestrae Magnifico Domino Academiae nostrae Rectori trandendas. etant eae literae Magnifici Domini Herwardi in cause Ephemeridum Dominationis Vestrae hue iam Octobri mense perscriptae; tradidi eas ipsemet, una cum alijs quoque literis P. Joannis Lanzij eodem mense eadem super re ad me perscriptis. Literarum Domini Herwardi summa haec fuit: Sibi, Consiliarijs reliquis Serenissimi Principis, et R. P. Rectori Collegij Monachij uideri Ephemerides Dominationis Vestrae posse utique Ingolstadij in lucem edi cum nihil contra Catholicam fidem contineant. In suis uero literis P. Joannes Lanz ait etiam R. P. Rectorem Collegij et se sentire meras Ephemerides Dominationi Vestrae Ingolstadij imprimi posse, praesertim si nomem loci et Typographi omittantur. addit porro, se ex ore Magnifici Domini D. Jocheri qui Linzio à Serenissimo Principe potestatem esse factam Monachij habitandi; quare etiam ea de causa tantò lubentius esse petitioni Dominationis Vestrae annuendum. Vtrasque istas literas cum et Magnificus Dominus Academiae Rector, et Spectabilis D. Theologicae Facultis Decanus perlegissent (nam eas utrisque tradidi) statim Dominationi Vestrae licentiam concesserunt suas Ephemerides hic Ingolstadij imprimendi.

Caspar M. , Kepler 1571–1630 , transl. by Hellman C. D. (New York, 1959), 262.

KGW (ref. 2), vii, 360: Monachii breue tempus constitutione antiquarum Epocharum et computatione Eclipsium intercessit.

Astronomi Kepleri Johannis Opera omnia , ed. by Frisch C. (8 vols, Frankfurt and Erlangen, 1858–71), viii, 880: 2. Aprili [1621] Monachii consideratio longitudinis anni Sideri. Calculus eclipsium Babylonicarum, ad constitutionem antiquarum epocharum.

KGW (ref. 2), xi/1, 495.

To be sure, it is possible that there was some otherwise unknown Hebrew manuscript seen by Kepler, but that would take us into the realm of pure speculation. Also, since the location of the manuscript in item (4b) at the time of Kepler is unknown, there is the possibility that Kepler saw it, but I take it to be unlikely in light of the evidence concerning the manuscript in Munich.