The Greek Text of Ptolemy,Almagest XIII,as Source of Book VI of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus

Kλ. . Claudii Ptolemæi Magnæ Constructionis, Id est Perfectæ coelestium motuum pertractationis lib. XIII. Theonis Alexandrini in eosdem Commentariorum lib. XI, Basileæ, Apud Ioannem Walderum An. m. D. XXXVIII.

Almagestum Cl. Ptolemei Pheludiensis Alexandrini Astronomorum principis: Opus ingens ac nobile omnes Celorum motus continens. Felicibus Astris eat in lucem: Ductu Petri Liechtenstein Coloniensis Germani. Anno Virginei Partus 1515. Die 10. Ja[nuarii] Venetiis ex officina eiusdem litteraria. The essential reference for this translation is Kunitzsch P. , Der Almagest: Die Syntaxis Mathematica des Claudius Ptolemäus in arabisch-lateinischer Überlieferung (Wiesbaden, 1974). Kunitzsch testifies to the extreme difficulty of understanding this translation, which was completed at Toledo in 1175 (Kunitzsch, op. cit., 104–8). The difficulty is essentially due to the literal character of the translation, which reproduces all the syntactical peculiarities of the Arabic. We should also recall that the translation is doubly indirect: Not only was it made starting from an Arabic translation (in fact, Gerard used two of them, both made directly from the Greek text: That of al-Haǧǧāǧ [completed in 827/828 and today preserved in a unique manuscript] and that of Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn [made between c. 879 and 890, and today lost]: cf. Kunitzsch , op. cit., 97–102), but Gerard did not directly translate his two Arabic sources. In fact, he made use of a Mozarab interpreter named Galippus [= Ġālib] who orally translated the Arabic text into Mozarabic (that is, the language of common use spoken by the Mozarabs or arabicized Christians as well as by the Arab settlers), and it was this oral translation into Mozarabic that Gerard translated into Latin (cf. Kunitzsch , op. cit., 85–6). On the translation activity of Gerard of Cremona, see Annali della Biblioteca Statale e Libreria Civica di Cremona, xli (1990), ed. by Pizzamiglio P. : The whole issue is devoted to Gerard of Cremona.

Claudii Ptolemæi Pheludiensis Alexandrini Almagestum seu Magnæ constructionis Mathematicæ opus plane divinum latina donatum lingua ab Georgio Trapezuntio usquequaque doctissimo. Per Lucam Gauricum Neapolit. divinæ matheseos professorem egregium in alma urbe Veneta orbis regina recognitum anno salutis M D XXVIII labente.

Cf. Prowe L. , Nicolaus Coppernicus (2 vols, Berlin, 1882–83; reprinted Osnabrück, 1967), i/2, 411; Birkenmajer L. A. , Mikolaj Kopernik: Studya nad pracami Kopernika oraz materyaly biograficzne (Cracow, 1900), chap. 13 (English transl., Nicolas Copernicus: Studies on the works of Copernicus and biographical materials, under the direction of Dobrzycki J. Gingerich O. , Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor 1975, 595–612); Czartoryski P. , “The library of Copernicus”, Studia Copernicana, xvi (Wrocław, 1978), 355–96, in particular no. 7, pp. 367–8.

Cf. Prowe , Nicolaus Coppernicus (ref. 4), i/2, 411: “Dass Coppernicus in die griechische Text-Ausgabe des Ptolemaeus (gleichwie in den griechischen Euklid) keinerlei Notizen eingezeichnet hat, ist einfach dadurch zu erklären, dass er den Inhalt beider Bücher nach den in seinem Besitze befindlichen lateinischen Uebersetzungen bereits vollständig verwerthet hatte”.

Cf. Nicholas Copernicus, Complete works, iii: Minor works, transl. and commentary by E. Rosen with the assistance of E. Hilfstein (London, Warsaw and Cracow, 1985), 3: “In the spring of the following year [scil. 1539] Copernicus' only disciple brought him a copy of this first edition. By that time Copernicus had nearly finished his Revolutions. For this reason the printed Greek text of Ptolemy's Syntaxis had only a minimal effect on the composition of Copernicus' Revolutions.”.

Uppsala, Universitets Bibliotek, Copernicana 17 (cf. Czartoryski, “Library” (ref. 4), no. 17, p. 372). Copernicus's annotations (in Latin and in Greek) in the margins of this copy of the Arabic-Latin translation are not very numerous. The first are found on f. 26^v: At line 2 (Synt. III 1, i, p. 191. 19 Heiberg), Copernicus identified Abrachis by noting in the margin Hipparchus, and at line 57 (Synt. III 1, i, p. 195.12 Heiberg) he identified philippi by noting in the margin Calippi; the last annotation is on f. 127^r. 26, where 33 partes et 5 minuta has been corrected in the margin to 34. 2 (indeed, the Greek text reads λδ β [Synt. XI 8, ii, p. 425.15 Heiberg]); the last reading mark is found on f. 132^v, where a passage from Book XII 1 is emphasized by a vertical line in the margin. The anterior flyleaf and f. 28^r, both with holograph Latin annotations, were published by Goddu A. , “Copernicus's annotations: Revisions of Czartoryski's ‘Copernicana’”, Scriptorium , lviii (2004), 202–26, pl. 37 and 43. Book XIII (f. 141^r-152^r) contains no marginal annotation, except on f. 144^v. 10–11, where the phrase Et describam etiam ad declarandos cursus in latitudine stelle [chap. 4, ii, p. 548.19–20 Heiberg] is underlined.

This text is found neither among the books that belonged to Copernicus, nor among those that were annotated by him. We have not found in Copernicus's catalogue of stars any probative evidence of a use of this translation. The assertion of E. Rosen, in Nicholas Copernicus, On the Revolutions , ed. by Dobrzycki J. , translation and commentary by Rosen E. (London, Warsaw and Cracow, 1978), 350–1 (notes ad p. 14.34 and 14.40), that the text of De rev. I 7 presents resemblances to Trebizond's translation, is not based on any obvious parallel text (see the notes to chapter I 7 in the Lerner-Segonds-Verdet edition (ref. 11)). Rosen's claim is repeated by Swerdlow N. M. Neugebauer O. , Mathematical astronomy in Copernicus's De revolutionibus (New York, 1984), Part I, 88, who draw from it two conclusions concerning the dating of De rev. and the chronological relation between Book I and Book II: “Rosen has made a very important discovery, for it shows that the introductory chapters of Book I must have written after 1528. On the other hand, the star catalogue and the precession theory appear to be based on the Gerard of Cremona translation, and are probably earlier than I, 7.” Since Rosen's assertion concerning the use of L² by Copernicus in I 7 is not based on any irrefutable textual similarities, the conclusions that Swerdlow and Neugebauer draw from it cannot be accepted.

Here is the full list of these passages: (1) De rev. VI, Preamble, ed. princeps, Nürnberg 1543, f. 182^r. 14–17 = Synt. XIII 1, p. 524. 12–15 Heiberg. (2) VI 1, f. 182^r. 25–29 = XIII 1, p. 524.16–20 H. (3) VI 1, f. 182^v. 6–9 = XIII 1, p. 526.6–11 H. (4) VI 2, f. 183^r. 3–2 ab imo = XIII 2, p. 529.3–6 H. (5) VI 3, f. 185^v. 9–14 = XIII 3, p. 534.11–15 H. (6) VI 3, f. 185^v. 22–25 = XIII 3, p. 537.15–19 H. (7) VI 6, f. 188^v. 6–5 ab imo = XIII 4, p. 567.7–8 H. (8) VI 6, f. 189^r. 5–10 = XIII 3, p. 535.15–18 H. (9) VI 6, f. 189^r. 17–19 = XIII 4, p. 568.3–4 H. (10) VI 6, f. 189^r. 21–189^v. 3 = XIII 4, p. 568.9–569.11 H. (11) VI 6, f. 189^v. 3–11 = XIII 4, p. 569.12–570.4 H. (12) VI 6, f. 189^v. 11–14 = XIII 4, p. 570.5–8 H. (13) VI 6, f. 189^v. 14–24 = XIII 4, p. 570.8–22 H. (14) VI 7, f. 189^v. 8 ab imo-190^r. 1 = XIII 4, p. 571.1–12 H. (15) VI 7, f. 190^r. 1–11 = XIII 4, p. 571.13–572.4 H. (16) VI 7, f. 190^r. 11–14, 17–18 = XIII 4, p. 572.5–12 H. (17) VI 7, f. 190^r. 19–22 = XIII 4, p. 572.17–20 H. (18) VI 7, f. 190^r. 26–36 = XIII 4, p. 573.10–22, p. 574.1–3, 5 H. (19) VI 7, f. 190^v. 5–9 = XIII 4, p. 574.7–15 H. (20) VI 7, f. 190^v. 22–27, 29–30 = XIII 4, p. 575.12–19, p. 576.2–3 H. (21) VI 7, f. 190^v. 30–34 = XIII 4, p. 576.5–18 H. (22) VI 7, f. 191^r. 1–5 = XIII 4, p. 576.24–577.6 H. (23) VI 7, f. 191^r. 5–8 = XIII 4, p. 577.8–11, 14–15, 20–21 H. (24) VI 7, f. 191^r. 14–21 = XIII 4, p. 578.9–21 H. (25) VI 7, f. 191^r. 21–29 = XIII 4, p. 579.2–4, p. 579.19–580.2 H. (26) VI 7, f. 191^r. 29–191^v. 6 = XIII 4, p. 580.3–12, p. 580.17–581.21 H. (27) VI 7, f. 191^v. 14–18 = XIII 4, p. 581.14–21 H. (28) VI 9, f. 195^v. 1–11 = XIII 6, p. 587.1–13 H. (29) VI 9, f. 195^v. 17–21 = XIII 6, p. 587.16–21 H. (30) VI 9, f. 195^v. 22–25 = XIII 9, p. 588.2–7 H.

Passages nos. 10, 12, 13, 14, 18 and 26 of the list in ref. 9.

This edition, in three volumes, will appear in the collection “Science et Humanisme”, Les Belles Lettres, Paris. In what follows we shall refer to leaves and lines of the editio princeps (ref. 13); the leaves of the princeps will appear in the margin of the Lerner-Segonds-Verdet edition.

Cracow, Biblioteka Jagiellonska, Ms BJ 10 000: The manuscript of Nicholas Copernicus' On the revolutions. Facsimile (London, Warsaw and Cracow, 1972).

Nicolai Copernici Torinensis de revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI, Norimbergae, apud Ioh. Petreium, 1543.

The translation of the Greek text (p. 569.9–11 Heiberg) is the following: “We must demonstrate, first, that the position in latitude at the tangent point, angle EAN, is the maximum, just as the equation in longitude [is maximum at that point]” ( Toomer G. J. , Ptolemy's Almagest (London, 1984; 2nd edn, Princeton, 1998), 623).

The three other manuscripts used by Heiberg, A¹BC, have .

Cf. Nicholas Copernicus, Complete works, iii: Minor works (ref. 6), 7–19, especially p. 13: “Copernicus' difficulties with the conjugation of verbs should be imputed … to his own bad luck in never having had any rigorous formal instruction in Greek.” The hypothesis of A. De Pace, Niccolò Copernico e la formazione del cosmo eliocentrico, con testo, traduzione e commentario del libro I de Le rivoluzioni celesti (Milan, 2009), 128–39, that Copernicus had access to a manuscript of the Greek text of the Almagest during his stay in Italy and that he made a transcription of it in view of possible future use, is devoid of any foundation whatsoever: Suffice it to examine Copernicus's Greek annotations in the margins of L¹, with their uncertain ductus and absence of accents and breathings, to conclude that the decipherment and transcription of a Byzantine manuscript were beyond the reach of Copernicus. In any case, such a fundamental hypothesis for the reconstruction of the genesis of De rev. requires positive and irrefutable evidence, which A. De Pace cannot at all provide.

The very numerous Greek quotations contained in the Narratio prima, among which Ptolemy, Synt. IX 2, ii, p. 212. 11–16 Heiberg (cf. Georgii Joachimi Rhetici Narratio Prima, edited with French translation by Hugonnard-Roche H. Verdet J.-P. (Wroclaw, Warsaw and Cracow, 1982), chap. IX, lines 28–31, pp. 57–8) bear witness to his knowledge of Greek (cf. Burmeister K. H. , Georg Joachim Rhetikus, 1514–1574: Eine Bio-Bibliographie (3 vols, Wiesbaden, 1967–68), i, 26). Let us recall also that Rheticus prepared the edition of the Greek text of Euclid's Elements which appeared at Leipzig in 1549 (Books I to VI: E. evclidis elementorvm geometricorvm libri sex, conversi in latinvm sermonem à Ioach. Camerario. Edebat Lipsiæ Georg. Ioach. Rhet., Exprimente Valentino Papa. Anno m. d. XLIX; cf. Burmeister, Georg Joachim Rhetikus, i, 105).