The Revolving Planets and the Revolving Clocks: Circulating Mechanical Objects in the Mediterranean

Recently a cross-cultural scholarship has developed and focused on the substantial intellectual interaction between the Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean and the Latin West that began in the mid-fifteenth century. See for instance Babinger Franz , Mehmed the Conqueror and his time (Princeton, 1992); on artisans and art see Atasoy Nurhan Raby Julian , The pottery of Ottoman Turkey (London, 1989), and Studies on Istanbul and beyond: The Freely papers, ed. by Ousterhout Robert (Philadelphia, 2007). On Greek—Arabic—Greek translation, Maria Mavroudi, “Late Byzantium and exchange with Arabic writers”, in Brooks S. T. (ed.), Byzantium, faith and power (1261–1557): Perspectives on late Byzantine art and culture (New Haven, CT, 2007), 62–75. The effects of exchanges on European culture has been explored in various works, see for instance Re-orienting the Renaissance: Cultural exchanges with the East, ed. by MacLean Gerald (New York, 2005); Brotton Jerry , Trading territories: Mapping the early modern world (Ithaca, NY, 1998); Jardine Lisa Brotton Jerry , Global interests: Renaissance art between East and West (Ithaca, NY, 2000).

The historiography of the astronomer-mechanic Tycho Brahe presented a purely European Tycho, detached historically from his Islamic predecessors and spatially from the Ottoman empire, which in fact played an enormous role in shaping Tycho's broader European culture, politics, and natural philosophy. Relying on Pierre Gassendi's presentation of Tycho, J. L. E. Dreyer's 1890 account gave us Tycho as an architect of new ideas who thrust forward an entire generation of astronomers. Dreyer looked for ways to prove that Tycho had cut himself off from traditional astronomy and presented him as the latest part of a cross-cultural chain that in some cases took in Islamic astronomy, especially that of al-Battānī (d. 929) and al-Zarqāel. Dreyer J. L. E. , Tycho Brahe: A picture of scientific life and work in the sixteenth century (New York, 1963); Gassendi Pierre , Tychonis Brahei, equitis Dani, astronomorum coryphaei, vita (The Hague, 1654). In the late 1980s, Victor Thoren shifted discussion from the ‘history of ideas’ to ‘intellectual history’, focusing on the ‘person’ Tycho, the way his work changed society, and the way he functioned within the Danish nobility. Thoren Victor E. , The Lord of Uraniborg: A biography of Tycho Brahe (Cambridge, 1990). Recently, John Christianson has presented Tycho's project as a political display of power and as embedded in contemporary culture, and has melted away the lines that previous historiography had used to divide Tycho's work — The lines between culture, politics and natural philosophy. Christianson John , On Tycho's island: Tycho Brahe and his assistants 1570–1601 (Cambridge, 2000).

Already in the 'fifties, Sevim Tekeli elevated the significance of Taqī al-Dīn's work to that of a challenge to the Ptolemaic system. Moreover, she looked for similarities between Taqī al-Dīn and Tycho by comparing their astronomical instruments, and framed a picture of Taqī al-Dīn as ” The Tycho Brahe of the Ottoman empire”. Sevim Tekeli, “Nasiruddin Takiyüddin ve Tyche Brahenin rasat aletlerinin mukayesesi [Taqī al-Dīn and Tycho Brahe's observational instruments]”, Ph.D. dissertation, Istanbul University, 1958; for a description of the instruments in the Istanbul observatory, see also Wiedemann E. , “Definitionen verschiedener Wissenschaften und über diese verfasste Werke”, Phys.-Med. Sozietät, l–li (1918–19), 26–8. Another Turkish scholar, with a nationalist agenda, Muammer Dizer, denied a possible connection between Taqī al-Dīn and the new astronomy and mechanics in Europe in order to present him as working concurrently (without the taint of diffusion) on the same themes. Dizer Muammer , Takiyüddin (Ankara, 1990). Moreover, some scholars have appreciated Taqī al-Dīn's achievements in terms of institutional history. Aydin Sayili, for example, produced a concise history of the last observatory of Islam, its instruments, and its financial resources. Sayili Aydin Mehmed , The observatory in Islam and its place in the general history of the observatory (Ankara, 1960).

Over the last three decades, much of the scholarship on Taqī al-Dīn and his observatory, especially that of Sayili and his ‘institutional history’ of the Islamic observatories, has relied upon Shāhinshāhnāma. However, this scholarship has taken the text as self-contained and has produced little about the scientific culture of astronomical observation. ‘Alā’ al-Dīn al-Manṣūr, Shāhinshāhnāma, Istanbul University Library, MS F 1404.

Since its astrological aspects, mentioned in some European studies, are most often dismissed by modern Islamic scholars “for showing a strong tendency to look down” upon Taqī al-Dīn's project ( Sayili Aydin , “‘Alā’ al-Din al-Manṣūr's poems”, Türk Tarï Kurumu Belleten, lxxix (1956), 429–84, pp. 445–6), we do not have accounts that explored the contextual and utilitarian circumstances that led to its establishment. Thus, the ‘history of ideas’ type of scholarship on Taqī al-Dīn shows us an astronomy evolving internally, detached from political pressures for astrological predictions indicating and resolving potential hazards to rulers.

For the Persian text and English translation of poems on the observatory, see “‘Alā’ al-Dīn al-Manṣūr's poems”, op. cit. (ref. 5), 472.

Ibid., 473.

Ibid.

For instance, the Ottomans built their first compass only in 1727, and this was based on European models. Upon examination, it was observed that rather than pointing due north, the needle inclined 11.5 degrees west. See Ihsanouglu Ekmeleddin , “Introduction of Western science to the Ottoman World: A case of modern astronomy (1660–1860)”, in Ihsanouglu (ed.), The transfer of modern science and technology to the Muslim world (Istanbul, 1992), 37–84.

“Amurathes tertius magni in coelo Dei gratia solymanus solus omnium regnum mundi rex imperator sulthanus Turcarum 1579”: Inscription at bottom of the celestial globe of Murād III. See Christie's booklet, The Murad III globes: The property of a Lady to be offered as Lot 139 in a sale of valuable travel and natural history books, atlases, maps and important globes on Wednesday 30 October 1991… (London, 1991).

Schöner did not have a celestial map in his Opera mathematica (Nuremberg, 1551). What he had was a list of stars and their positions. Apparently the map was added in his (posthumously published) Opera.

He composed a work on conversion of calendars titled Commentary on his poem on conversion of dates in different calendars [Al-Abyāt al-tis'a fī istihrāj al-tawārikh al-mashhāra wa-sharhuhā]; and another geographical treaties titled Uses on determining the equator of the globe and knowledge of the sine [Fawā'id fī istikhrāj mintaqat al-kura wa ma'rifat af-jayb].

Taqī al-Dīn Muhammad Ibn-Ma'ārūf Sidrat al-muntah al-afkār fi malkūt al-falak al-dawār — Al-zīj al-Shāhinshāhī, Topkapi Museum Library, no. 465/1, 85b, 86b–87a.

For close cultural and economic connections of the Salonika community with Italy, see Benayahu Meir , HaYahasim sheBen yehude Yavan ve yehude Italia [The relations between Greek and Italian Jewry] (Tel Aviv, 1980).

See Leibowitz J. O. , Amatus Lusitanus (1511–1568) è Salonique (Rome, 1970).

See Ihsanoglu Ekmeleddin , Büyük Cihad'dan Frenk Fodulluğuna (Istanbul, 1996), 106–9; idem, Osmanli Astronomi Literaturu Tarihi [History of astronomic literature during the Ottoman period] (Istanbul, 1997), i, 328–9; Mordtmann J. H. , “Das Observatorium des Taqī en-din zu Pera”, Der Islam, xiii (1923), 1923–6. The Jewish community of Salonika is well documented. However, in the lists of books produced by their local presses we find no mention of his name, and so he probably did not publish a book. It is natural to assume that a man from Salonika should have left life traces. Yet, in the list of tombs in the local Jewish cemetery no David fits the few clues we have. Perhaps he left Salonika later in life and died elsewhere. See Rekanati David A. , Zikhron Saloniki: Gedulatah ve-hurbanah shel Yerushalayim de-Balkan, ha-'orekh (Tel Aviv, 1971); Molco Michael , Beit ha'Almin shel Saloniki (The cemetery of Saloniki) (Tel Aviv, 1974).

See the introduction to Delmedigo Josef Solomon , Sefer Elim (Amsterdam, 1628), 4b.

See Conforte David , Kore haDorot [The reader for the generations] (Berlin, 1846), 39.

Bricot Thomas , Toldot HaAdam, transl. by Ben-Shushan David Seminary Jewish Theological (New York), Ms. 5475.

Bricot , Toldot HaAdam, 59b.

Bricot , Toldot HaAdam, 76b. We find some difficulties in looking for indications for why Ben-Shushan chose to translate Bricot's commentary on Aristotle, since the manuscript does not contain the first pages where we should expect some sort of introduction by the translator. Nevertheless, we could search elsewhere. We have few other writings of Ben-Shushan. We also have an indication that he wrote another work titled Biet habhira [House of will], but the work is not extant. However, fragments of the introduction to this work, which we find attached to other works on one manuscript (see indication at untitled mss., Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy, St Petersburg, B 267, 4a–9b), show that the work was dealing with the question of determinism and free-will especially in the light of Ben-Shushan's more famous work, a commentary on the Ecclesiastes. Ben-Shushan Davi , Peirush Kohelet [Commentary on Ecclesiastes], The Jewish National and University Library Ms. Heb. 4° 619. David Ben Shushan, a Jewish savant, addresses the question of the status of the human spirit (rūah, rūh, pneuma) in the course of his commentary to Ecclesiastes. Recently Y. Tzvi Langerman argued that Ben-Shushan was contemplating questions of free-will and determinism. Spirit is the substrate of the soul; but as such, is it divine like the soul, so that it too ascends after death? Or is it rather purely material and hence perishable? After reviewing a number of medieval Islamic sources, Ben Shushan decides in favour of the view of Ibn Tufayl who, in his “philosophical romance” Hayy Ibn Yaqzān, declares the spirit to be divine. Among the interpretations that Ben Shushan rejects is that of ” The authors of the Zohar”. However, his critique is conducted entirely in a scientific idiom, without any polemical overtones. This is instructive insofar as it illustrates that kabbalists and natural philosophers of the period engaged on the whole in a constructive discourse based upon shared concepts. The texts studied here testify to the endurance of Andalusian Jewish learning even after the expulsion of 1492. Indeed, perhaps Giordano Bruno mined some of the same sources utilized by Ben Shushan. See Langermann Tzvi Y. , “David Ibn Shoshan on spirit and soul”, European journal of Jewish studies, i (2007), 63–86.

Taqī al-Dīn Muhammad Ibn-Ma'ārūf, Sidrat al-muntah, Topkapi Museum Library, no. 465/1, 85b, 86b–87a.

See Almosnino Rabbi Moshe , Sefer haSefira, transl. by Peurbach George , Theoricae novae planetarum (1560s).

A full description of his experience in Istanbul is found in Almosnino Moses , Extremos y grandezas de Constantinopla (Madrid, 1638).

Nasi had banking connections to the Spanish and French courts; he fled to Istanbul when his businesses could not remain in Christian Europe. see also Rosenblatt Norman , “Joseph Nasi: Court favorite of Selim II”, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1957, 99–105.

Shtokhamer Avishai , Don Yosef Nasi: A Marrano's rise to power (Brooklyn, NY, 1991); Harozen Jacob , Don Yosef Nasi: Nesikh Naḳsus, Moshel Ha-Iyim, ṿe-Shaliṭ Yam ha-Tikhon (Tel Aviv, 1960).

Schweigger Salomon , Ein newe Reyssbeschreibung auss Teutschland nach Constantinopel und Jerusalem (Graz, 1964), 90–1. I thank Christina Kurtz for help in the translation.

Taqī al-Dīn's Christian captive-artisans were no exception. Braudel has asserted that sixteenth-century Mediterranean artisans came from many races, rarely native to the area, and that Istanbul was “where manufacture was often in the hands of immigrants, Christian prisoners who … frequently became master of craftsmen” ( Braudel Fernand , The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the Age of Philip II (New York, 1966), i, 436). Most artisans in small industries were members of the Jewish community of Salonika (i, 436).

Schweigger , op. cit. (ref. 27), 91.

Bono Salvatore , Corsari nel Mediterraneo: Cristiani e musulmani fra guerra, schiavitù e commercio (Milan, 1993); Valente Gustavo , Calabria, Calabresi e Turcheschi nei secoli della pirateria: 1400–1800 (Chiaravella Centrale, 1973).

For the memoirs of Mustafā Efendi, see Schmucker F. , “Die maltesischen Gefangenschaftserinnerungen eines turkischen Kadi von 1599”, Archivum Ottomanicum, ii (1970), 191–251.

Bashan Eliezer , Shviyya ve pedut [Captivity and redemption] (Tel Aviv, 1980), 134.

In a novel entitled The white castle, Orhan Pamuk transforms an actual autobiographical manuscript of a European captive. The overall sense, which is quite accurate, is that the Ottomans were aware of European technological and scientific advantages and used captives to transfer knowledge. See Pamuk Orhan , The white castle (New York, 1991).

Nabil Matar gives us examples of journals from the seventeenth century that were written by Muslims who went to Europe either to ransom captives or to learn about the new maritime explorations and the discoveries coming from the New World. Matar Nabil (ed. and transl.), In the lands of the Christians: Arabic travel writing in the seventeenth century (New York, 2003).

See Dannenfeld Karl , “The humanists' knowledge of Arabic”, Studies in the Renaissance, ii (1955), 96–117; a bibliography of all pre-1919 works printed in Arabic was published by Sarkis Yusuf Ilyan , Mu'jam al-matbu'āt al-'Arabiyya wa-al-mu'arraba:… min yawm zuhūr al-tibā'a ilā nihāyat al-sana al-hijriyya al-muwāfiq li-sanat 1919 mīlādiyya (al-Qahira, 1928). See also a series of articles by L. Cheikho, “Tārīkh fann al-tibā'a fi al-mashriq [History of the art of book-printing in the East]”, al-Mashriq, 1900–2, 3–5. My discussion here is based on Johannes Pedersen, The Arabic book, transl. by French Geoffrey (Princeton, NJ, 1984), 131–41; Allāh Samir'Atā , Tārīkh wa-fann sina'āt al-kitāb (Beirut, 1993), 124–6.

Africanus Johannes Leo , A history and description of Africa, transl. by Pory John (1600) (London, 1896). Leo also wrote an Arabic—Spanish vocabulary for the instruction of his pupil Jacob Mantino, the celebrated Jewish physician; Derenbourg Harwig , “Leon Africain et Jacob Mantino”, Revue des études juives, vii (1883), 1883–5. He also taught Arabic in Rome, and the humanist Cardinal Gilles of Viterbo (Aegidius) was among his first pupils: Widmanstetter Johann Albrecht , Liber sacrosancti evangelii de Iesv Christo… (Vienna, 1562), fol. 12b. See also Davis Natalie Zemon , Trickster travels: A sixteenth-century Muslim between worlds (New York, 2006).

In the same year, this particular press also printed Tahrīr usūl Uqlīds by Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (d. 1274), a commentary on Euclid that was used by Islamic and European astronomers. Moreover, a Roman press printed an Arabic version of the medical treatise al-Qānūn fī ṭībb by Ibn-Sīnā (Avicenna) in 1593, together with an extract from his metaphysical work al-Qānūn al-shifā. The printed Arabic edition of Euclid appeared in two forms: The larger one is said to survive only in Florence (Pal. 272 and 313, the latter MS containing only six books); this was published at Rome in 1594, and, remarkably enough, some copies of this edition are to be found with 12 and some with 13 books, some with a Latin title and some without: Suter H. , Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke: Bio-bibliografische Übersicht von Wissenschaftlern der arabischen Welt, vom achten bis zum siebzehnten Jahrhundert; mit Namenregister, ausführlichen Nachträgen und Berichtigungen Versehen; nebst, Die Araber als Vermittler der Wissenschaften in deren Übergang vom Orient in den Occident (Amsterdam, [1897] 1981), 151. The Latin title is Euclidis elementorum geometricorum libri tredecim. Ex traditione doctissimi Nasiridini Tusini nunc primum arabice impressi (Rome, 1594); ‘Atlālhlah, Tārikh fann sinā'at al-kitāb (Beirut, 1993), 124–6.

Brotton Jerry , “Printing the world”, in Frasca-Spada Marin Jardine Nicholas (eds), Books and the sciences in history (Cambridge, 2000), 35–48.

For a full account of the Muslim presence in early-modern Italy, see Bono Salvatore , Schiavi Muslamani nell'Italia moderna Galeotti, vu' cumpra, domestici (Naples, 1999).

Taqī al-Dīn noted, in his own handwriting, on his copy of the Arabic translation of the Almagest, which is still extant in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Tunisie (Arabic no. 7116), that he read about Ptolemy in the dictionary of the multilingual Ambrogio Calipino (d. 1511). I thank George Saliba, who found this manuscript, for sharing the information. see also Saliba , “The world of Islam and Renaissance science and technology”, in Hess Catherine (ed.), The arts of fire: Islamic influences on glass and ceramics of the Italian Renaissance (Los Angeles, 2004), 69–71.

See Rose Paul Lawrence , “Humanist libraries and Renaissance mathematics: The Italian libraries of the Quattrocento”, Studies in the Renaissance, xx (1973), 46–105.

Commandino dedicated the commentary to Ranuccio Farnese, and took that occasion to explain how contemporary mathematicians complained of the extreme difficulty in reading Ptolemy's Planisphaerium: Rose Paul Lawrence , The Italian renaissance of mathematics: Studies on humanists and mathematicians from Petrarch to Galileo (Geneva, 1975), 197.

In 1563 John Dee visited Commandino, bringing with him a Latin manuscript titled De superficierum divisionibus, which Comandino eventually published as al-Baghdādī Muhammad , De superficierum divisionibus liber; Federici Commandini de eadem re libellus (Pesaro, 1570). It was essentially a version of an Arabic treatise by al-Baghdādī (d. 1037) on the division of rectilinear plane figures. Dee's letter (probably early 1560s) to Commandino that prefaced the volume conjectured that Muhammad al-Baghdadi's treatise is actually the lost Liber divisionum of Euclid. However Commandino ignored it in his dedicatory letter to Prince Francesco Maria II of Urbino. Rose , Italian renaissance of mathematics (ref. 42), 200.

For the works of Commandino and his students in the art of clock-making, see Panicati Roberto , Orologi e orologiai del Rinascimento italiano: La scuola urbinate = L'horlogerie d'interieur italienne au XVIe siècle et l'école du duché d'Urbino = Sixteenth century Italian chamber clocks and the Urbino school (Urbino, 1988). On this subject, see also Sinisgalli Rocco Vastola Salvatore , La rappresentasione degli orologi solari di Federico Commandino (Florence, 1994).

Rose , Italian renaissance of mathematics (ref. 42), 213–14.

Baldi Bernardino , Le vite de' matematici: Edizione annotata e commentata della parte medievale e rinascimentale (Milan, 1998).

Cippola Carlo , Clocks and culture: 1300–1700 (London, 1967), 87.

See Babinger F. , “Maometto II Conquistatore e l'Italia”, Rivista storica Italiana, lxiii (1951), 469–505.

See Kurz Otto , European clocks and watches in the Near East (London, 1975), 30, note 1.

Ibid., 34.

Ibid., 47–9.

See Forster Charles Thornton Daniell Blackburne (eds), The life and letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Seigneur of Bousbeque Knight, Imperial Ambassador (London, 1881), 101–2.

Kitāb al-kawākib al-durrīyah fī bīnkāmāt al-dawrīyah [The revolving planets and the revolving clocks], Mīqāt Collection, Dār al-Kuttub, Cairo, MS 557/1, L3a.

Ibid., L.3a.

Ibid., V.4a.

Another use of the word in the history of Islamic mechanics is found in a medieval book ascribed to Archimedes entitled The book of Archimedes on the construction of water-clocks (Kitāb Arshimīdis fī a'mal al-bīnkāmāt), quite possibly a source. It consisted of an anonymous description of a monumental water-clock. Donald Hill conjectured that its origins are Greek, with additions by Arabic writers, who took it as an important source for late-medieval mechanics. See Hill Donald , Arabic water-clocks (Aleppo, 1981), 1. However, the author's training, apparently, had stemmed from a broad and flexible intellectual field, allowing him to appropriate new, and somewhat foreign and stigmatized knowledge. Contrary to the view of Taqī al-Dīn, bīnkām has neither Arabic nor Persian roots, but is ostensibly a corruption of a Latin word. In Antiquity, Roman timekeepers divided diurnal time into day and night, each having twelve segments. The last hour before the light, just as Taqī al-Dīn suggested, is called diluculum (dawn) in Latin, and one can only suggest tentatively that bīnkām, ostensibly, a corruption of something, might come from that Latin word. See the Bede Venerable , De temporum ratione, in Bedae opera de temporibus, ed. by Jones C. W. (Cambridge, MA, 1943), 195; also in Van Rossum Gerhard Dohrn , History of the hour: Clocks and modern temporal orders (Chicago, 1996), 20.

Taqī al-Dīn Muhammad Ibn-Ma'ārūf, “Baqiyyat al-tullāb ilā 'ilm al-hisāb” (1578; one copy in Topkapi Archives (I thank Ihsan Fazlioglu, who informed me of the existence of this manuscript); a second copy is Dār al-Kuttub, Riyada MS 1023).

Kitāb al-ṭuruq al-samiyyah fī al-ālāt al-rūhānīyyah; see the printed facsimile in al-Hassan Ahmad Yūsef (ed.), Taqī al-Dīn wa al-handasah al-mīkānīkiyyah (Aleppo, 1976).

The Syrian scholar AḤmad Yūsuf al-ḥasan has surveyed different accounts of Taqī al-Dīn's identity and decided to place his birth and education in Syria, and the sources of his knowledge in mechanics, alchemy and talismans in an early education at schools in Nablus and Damascus. Kitāb al-turuq al-samiyyah fī al-ālāt al-rūḥanīyyah (ref. 58), 18–19.

Ibid., 19.

Ibid., 65–8.

See ibid., 3, and idem, Kitāb al-kawākib al-durrīyah fī bīnkāmāt al-dawrīyah [The revolving planets and the revolving clocks], v.4b, v.5a; as cited in Tekeli Sevim , 16'inci Asirda Osmanlilarda Saat ve Takiyüddin 'in “Mekanik Saat Konstrüksüynuna Dair En Parlak Yildizlar” Adi Eseri: The clocks in Ottoman empire in 16^th century and Taqī al-Dīn's ” The brightest stars for the construction of the mechanical clock” (Ankara, 1966), 215–323.

See the contemporary biography of 'Alī Pasha by Shalabī Ahmad al-Ghanī Ibn A'Bd , Awḍaḥ al-ishārāt fīman tawallá Miṣr al-Qáhirah min al-wuzará 'wa-al-bāshāt, ed. by al-Māwī Fu'ād Muḥammad (Cairo, 1977), 148.

Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn-Ma'ārūf, Book of the sublime way of spiritual mechanics [Kitāb al-ṭuruq al-samiyyah fī al-ālāt al-rūḥanīyyah], in al-Hassan (ed.), Taqī al-Dīn wa al-handasah al-mīkanīkiyyah (ref. 58), 3–5.

al-Dīn Taqī , op. cit. (ref. 53), v.4b.

Ibid., v.1.b.

Ibid., v.1.b.

See ‘Alā’ al-Dīn al-Manṣūr, Shāhinshāhnāma, in Sayili, “‘Alā’ al-Dīn al-Manṣūr's poems” (ref. 5), 472–3.

Sayili , “‘Alā’ al-Dīn al-Manṣūr's poems” (ref. 5), 479–80.

Ibid., 480.

Ma'shar Abu , Kitāb al-milal wa al-duwal, ed. by Yamamoto K. Burnett C. (Leiden, 2000), i, 307.

Sayili , “‘Alā’ al-Dīn al-Manṣūr's poems” (ref. 5), 480.

Ibid., 481.

Ibid., 472.

Ibid., 483.

Ibid., 483.