2024-10-30

Two new PAL volumes published

We are pleased to announce two new publications in our series Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus:

Flora Vafea: The Risāla dhāt al-kursī Attributed to Ptolemy: A Treatise on the Celestial Globe with Stand, Turnhout: Brepols, 2024, 245 pp. (Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus – Texts 3)

Paul Hullmeine: Ptolemy’s Cosmology in Greek and Arabic: The Background and Legacy of the Planetary Hypotheses, Turnhout: Brepols, 2024, 479 pp. (Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus – Texts 4)

Both volumes are Gold Open Access and can be downloaded from our Publications page: https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/publications.

PALT-3

This book deals with the Risāla Dhāt al-kursī, a 33-chapter Arabic treatise on the celestial globe with stand. The treatise is attributed to Ptolemy in some manuscripts, to the Ottoman scholar Akhawayn in others, but is anonymous in most. The book begins with a survey of references to Ptolemaic works in Greek and Arabic sources, presenting various works attributed to Ptolemy either preserved in the original Greek or in translation, or considered lost, including both authentic works and pseudepigrapha. Next follows a critical edition of the treatise Dhāt al-kursī, based on eight of the twenty-three manuscripts studied. The edition is accompanied by an English translation and an extensive mathematical commentary on each chapter, enriched with explanatory figures. The comparison between this treatise and the Treatise on the Celestial Globe by Qusṭā ibn Lūqā (d. ca 912 AD), presented in parallel with the commentary, shows that the former is based on the latter; thus the treatise Dhāt al-kursī should be considered a Ptolemaic pseudepigraphon. A transcription of the Arabic text of the treatise by Qusṭā ibn Lūqā based on three of the eighteen examined manuscripts is included, so that the reader may compare the two texts. Furthermore, in order to examine Akhawayn’s association with the treatise, a bibliographical and historical investigation is conducted, which examines the full range of works at ributed to Akhawayn. However, the truth about the authorship was probably lost, as the result of various rivalries in the late fifteenth century.

Flora Vafea is a historian of science and mathematician, and received her PhD from the University Paris 7-Diderot in 2006. Her research is concerned with ancient and Islamic astronomy, in particular astronomical instruments, with several publications and conference presentations in those fields. She is a research associate of the Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus project and currently teaches at al-Azhar University in Cairo and at Cairo University.

PALT-4

Ptolemy’s Almagest (2nd century ad) is the most influential work of ancient and medieval astronomy. This work, however, does not tell us the full story about its author’s views of the heavens. After completing the Almagest, Ptolemy turned his attention to a physical investigation of celestial motions. The result is the Planetary Hypotheses, a bold attempt to provide a celestial physics that coheres with the mathematical account of astronomical observations in his Almagest.

This book provides the first complete critical edition and English translation of the Arabic version of the Planetary Hypotheses, which is lost for the most part in its original Greek. It furthermore provides an extensive commentary on the whole work, which situates the Planetary Hypotheses within the context of its time and investigates philosophical ideas central to the work. These include the epistemic value of mathematics relative to natural philosophy, and the shape, number, and dynamics of the celestial bodies. The book also investigates the influence of the Planetary Hypotheses on a wide range of medieval Arabic astronomical and philosophical works from the 9th to the 13th century ad. The upshot is to establish the Planetary Hypotheses as a crucial text for understanding the history of philosophy and science from Greek antiquity to the Arabic Middle Ages

Paul Hullmeine is a historian of philosophy and science. His research focuses on Greek natural philosophy and astronomy and its reception in the Arabic Middle Ages. He received his PhD from the LMU Munich and currently holds a postdoctoral position at the same university, funded by the DFG.