This paper has been written as part of a research programme on “The astronomy of Alfonso x and its Arabic sources”, sponsored by the (Spanish) Comisión Asesora de Investigación Cientifica y Técnica (project no. 2769).
2.
Libros del saber de astronomía, ed. by Rico y SinobasM. (5 vols, Madrid, 1863–67), i, 7–145.
3.
We have seen the editions published in Venice in 1483 and in Paris in 1553. The recent edition by PoulleEmmanuel (Les tables alphonsines avec les canons de Jean de Saxe (Paris, 1984)) is not concerned with the table of stars.
4.
Rico, Libros, iv, 173–4.
5.
Rico, Libros, i, 144.
6.
Rico, Libros, ii, 147.
7.
HiltyG., “El libro conplido en los iudicios de las estrellas”, Al-Andalus, xx (1955), 43–44.
8.
KnechtPierre, I libri astronomici di Alfonso X in una versione fiorentina del Trecento (Zaragoza, 1965).
9.
On Alfonsine precession and trepidation see DelambreJ. B., Histoire de l'astronomie au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1819), 250–1; DreyerJ. L. E., “The original form of the Alfonsine Tables”, Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, lxxx (1920), 243–62; PriceDerek J., “A medieval footnote to Ptolemaic precession”, Vistas in astronomy, i (1955), 66; idem, The equatorie of the planetys (Cambridge, 1955), 104–7; DobrzyckiJerzy, “Teoria prescesji w astronomii średniowiecznej”, Studia i materialy z dziejow nauki Polskiej, ser. C, xi (1965), 3–45 (in Polish with a long summary in English); MercierRaymond, “Studies in the medieval conception of precession”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xxvi (1976), 197–220 and xxvii (1977), 33–71 (espec. pp. 58–60).
10.
Ptolemy, Almagest, VII, 4.
11.
Poulle, Les tables alphonsines…, 124.
12.
There is another error in the equation corresponding to the Flood: It should read — 3;01,03° instead of —2;57,12°. The equation corresponding to the epoch of Philippus has a misprint in Poulle's edition: The correct value is 2;40,55° instead of 2;49,55°. Other errors are minor and amount to only 3″ at most.
13.
BurgosCantera F., El judío salmantino Abraham Zacut (Madrid, 1931), 139, and idem, Abraham Zacut: Siglo XV (Madrid, 1935), 242–4.
14.
Cantera, El judío salmantino, 139–40, and idem, Abraham Zacut, 245–7.
15.
al-Aūfī, Kitab… (ed. Hyderabad, 1954), 25.
16.
Albuhassim in the Latin text: The author is referring to Abū-l-Husayn °Abd al-Rahmān al-Aūfi.
17.
“Coeterum Alphonsus Rex quarto post Alphonsinas tabulas editas anno, videlicet anno 1256, cum legisset librum Albuhassim de motu locisque Fixarum, ex Arabico in Hispanum idioma translatum, in quo Albategnii sententia confirmabatur, secutus Albategnium, alteram Fixarum tabulam edidit diversam a Canone pristino motus Augium et Fixarum. Ita narrat Abraham Zaguthus in sua Magna Compositione”, RiccioliJ. B., Almagestum novum (Bologna, 1651), Tomus I, Liber III, Caput XXVIII. We owe this quotation to the kindness of F. J. Casanovas of the Vatican Observatory.
18.
NorthJohn, “The Alfonsine Tables in England”, Prismata: Festschrift für Willy Hartner (Wiesbaden, 1977), 269–301, pp. 269–70.
19.
AlfonsoX, Primera crónica general de España, ed. by PidalMenéndez R., i (repr. Madrid, 1977), 149.
20.
NallinoC. A., Al-Battani sive Albalenii: Opus astronomicum (3 vols, Milan, 1903–7; repr. Frankfurt, 1969), i, 124 and iii, 187.
21.
al-Aūfī, op. cit. (ref. 15), 23–24.
22.
Rico, Libros (ref. 4), iv, 179–80.
23.
GoldsteinB. R., “On the theory of trepidation according to Thābit b. Qurra and al-Zarqālluh and its implications for homocentric planetary theory”, Centaurus, x (1964), 232–47; SamsóJ., “Sobre el modelo de Azarquiel para determinar la oblicuidad de la eclíptica”, to appear in the festschrift for Prof. D. Cabanelas (Granada).
24.
Mercier, op. cit (ref. 9), 59.
25.
Not on 18 May 15 A.D. as Dreyer claimed (op. cit. (ref. 9), 247).
26.
AlfonsoX, op. cit. (ref. 19), i, 111.
27.
Claudius Ptolemaeus, Der Sternkatalog des Almagest: Die arabisch-mittelalterliche Tradition, I: Die arabischen Übersetzungen, ed. by KunitzschPaul (Wiesbaden, 1986).
28.
Chapter 51 of al-Battānī's canons is missing in the extant Spanish translation. Cf.BossongGeorg, Los Cánones de Albateni (Tübingen, 1978).
29.
SamsóJ., “El tratado alfonsí sobre la esfera”, Dynamis (Granada), ii (1982), 57–73.
