Transmission of Computational Methods within the Alfonsine Corpus: The Case of the Tables of Nicholaus De Heybech

See Chabás José Goldstein Bernard R. , The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo (Dordrecht and Boston, 2003).

Chabás José Goldstein Bernard R. , “Computational astronomy: Five centuries of finding true syzygy”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxviii (1997), 93–105.

Chabás José Goldstein Bernard R. , “Nicolaus de Heybech and his table for finding true syzygy”, Historia mathematica, xix (1992), 265–89. We have seen a dozen manuscripts of Nicholaus de Heybech's tables: Basel, Universitätbibliothek, F.II.7; Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, 447; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 7287 and lat. 7290A; Cues, 211; Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, 2440; Cracow, Biblioteka Jagiellonska, 609, 610, 613, 1852, and 1865 (twice); and Princeton, University Library, Grenville Kane Collection 51. Several authors have mentioned other manuscripts containing the same material: Bern, 454; Vatican, Pal. lat. 1376; Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, 5245; and Munich, Clm 14111 and 26666.

Goldstein Bernard R. , “Lunar velocity in the Ptolemaic tradition”, in The investigation of difficult things: Essays on Newton and the history of the exact sciences , ed. by Harman P. M. Shapiro A. E. (Cambridge, 1992), 3–17; idem, “Lunar velocity in the Middle Ages: A comparative study”, in From Baghdad to Barcelona: Studies in the Islamic exact sciences in honour of Prof. Juan Vernet, ed. by Casulleras J. Samsó J. (2 vols, Barcelona, 1996), i, 181–94.

See Chabás Goldstein , “Computational astronomy” (ref. 2). The conventions for the algebraic signs in Eq. 1 are not well described in Heybech's canons, whereas the versions in TV and Zacut are unambiguous because the headings tell the user when to add and when to subtract.

Chabás José Goldstein Bernard R. , Astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula: Abraham Zacut and the transition from manuscript to print (Philadelphia, 2000), especially pp. 23–36.

On this set of tables, see Dobrzycki Jerzy , “The Tabulae Resolutae”, in De astronomia Alphonsis Regis , ed. by Comes M. Puig R. , and Samsó J. (Barcelona, 1987), 71–77; Chabás José , “Astronomy at Salamanca in the mid-fifteenth century: The Tabulae Resolutae“, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxix (1999), 1999–75.

For biographical details, see Chabás Goldstein , Abraham Zacut (ref. 6), 6–15.

For Zacut's tables in the Islamic world, see Samsó Julio , “Abraham Zacut and Joseph Vizinho's Almanach perpetuum in Arabic”, Centaurus , xlvi (2004), 82–97; idem, “In pursuit of Zacut's Almanach perpetuum in the eastern Islamic world”, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, xv (2002–3), 67–93.

See Goldstein Bernard R. , “The Hebrew astronomical tradition: New sources”, Isis, lxxii (1981), 237–51, p. 248.

Another fragment containing Zacut's tables of 1513 is extant in New York, JTSA, MS 2567. There is no hint in Zacut's canons that he was aware of Heybech or that he had direct access to his table.

3(d) means weekday 3, i.e., Tuesday. And indeed 30 Aug. 1513 (JDN 2273923) was a Tuesday.

The absolute value of this amount for the total correction is close to its maximum: See Kremer Richard L. , “Wenzel Faber's tables for finding true syzygy”, Centaurus, xlv (2003), 305–29, p. 314 (table 2).

We are grateful to Y. Tzvi Langermann for bringing this manuscript to our attention.

The date given in the text is not easy to read but 5557 a.m. is confirmed by recomputing the astronomical data with Zacut's tables for 1513.