Work C.3.3
Anonymous
〈تفسير كتاب الثمرة〉
〈Tafsīr Kitāb al-Thamara〉
A massive commentary on the Thamara in the version with verba sorted by Ibn al-Kammād (on which see B.1.1), hence consisting of eight chapters (maqālas). The commentator’s identity is unknown, as the sole known manuscript, Florence, BML, Or. 94, lacks the first folios. He was writing in 1224 or shortly thereafter, possibly in Murcia (cf. below), and drew on Abū Jaʿfar’s commentary (C.3.1, e.g., ff. 7r–v and 81r) and on a wide range of other astrological and astronomical sources, both written and oral. The expositions of single verba can be particularly exhaustive and even resemble self-contained treatises on specific astrological topics. The most extreme case is verbum 66 (on tasyīr), whose commentary (ff. 123v–143r) is comparable in length with that of Abū Jaʿfar’s commentary on the entire Thamara.
Note 1 The surviving part of the commentary on verbum 100 (ff. 60r–62r) includes classifications of the various kinds of comets with sketches, based on works attributed to Ptolemy (cf. B.3.1), al-Kindī, Abū Maʿshar and Bastahām the Indian, as well as on Abū Jaʿfar’s commentary (C.3.1). There follow descriptions of three cometary observations, the first of which pertains to a comet sighted in Marrakesh in 610/1213-4 (not necessarily by the commentator) and associated with the death, some 50 days later, of the Almohad caliph Muḥammad al-Nāṣir (d. 25 December 1213). The second comet was observed by the commentator himself in Murcia, and the ensuing catastrophes affecting al-Andalus and the Maghreb are said to have lasted for two years at the time of writing. The third comet was likewise observed by the commentator, but at an unspecified date and place. However, its described path perfectly agrees with modern calculations of the return of Halley’s comet in September 1222. This is confirmed by the report of events unfolding sixteen months later, which can only pertain to the death of the Almohad caliph Yūsuf al-Mustanṣir (d. 6 January 1224) and the subsequent power struggles in al-Andalus, described as still ongoing at the time of writing.
Note 2 Chapter V (on eclipses and comets, encompassing verba 24, 96, 99, and 100 and including the sketches of various comets) was partly translated into Latin and incorporated into the Liber de significatione cometarum, an anonymous compilation on comets extant in six Latin manuscripts and a number of vernacular translations and adaptations (on this source, see Jean-Patrice Boudet, ‘Les comètes dans le Centiloquium et le De cometis du Pseudo-Ptolémée’, Micrologus 24 (2016), pp. 195–226, here pp. 214–217 and Emanuele Rovati, ‘Alcune tracce degli scritti filosofici di Abū Bakr al-Rāzī nel «Dialogus» di Petrus Alfonsi’, in La latinidad medieval. Estudios hispánicos 2022, eds Estrella Pérez Rodríguez and Alberto Alonso Guardo, Florence: SISMEL - Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2023, pp. 519–538, here pp. 528–529, esp. n. 29). The Liber’s traditional dating to c. 1238 (cf. Lynn Thorndike, Latin Treatises on Comets between 1238 and 1368 A.D., Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1950, pp. 9–10) is based on a misinterpretation of the text, but from the Liber’s dependence on the present Arabic commentary it follows that it postdates 1224.
Text: [Florence, BML, Or. 94]
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Bibl.: Carlo Alfonso Nallino, al-Battānī sive Albatenii opus astronomicum. Ad fidem codicis Escurialensis arabice editum. Latine versum, adnotationibus instructum, 3 vols, Milano: Ulrico Hoepli, 1899–1907, vol. II, pp.
Ed.: An edition and study of Chapter V and of the Liber de significatione cometarum is in preparation by Emanuele Rovati.
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