Work A.2.3
Ptolemy
كتاب الأربع
Kitāb al-Arbaʿ (tr. unknown)
This Arabic version of the Tetrabiblos by an unidentified author survives in a single manuscript from the 19th century (Istanbul, Üniversitesi, A 6141), which comprises only Book I and Chapters II.1–3. It is not mentioned in biobibliographical works but was first identified as an independent translation by Keiji Yamamoto. While this translation is clearly unrelated to the version attributed to Ibrāhīm b. al-Ṣalt/Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq (A.2.2), it may share a common origin with al-Farrukhān’s paraphrase (A.2.1). Burnett (forthcoming) has shown that the Latin translation of the Tetrabiblos written by Hugo Sanctelliensis around 1150 (Latin A.2.2) was based on this Arabic version, and that the Latin version completed in Toledo in 1236 (Latin A.2.4) is an abbreviated literal translation of it. The author of this Arabic translation must hence have been active before the mid 12th century.
Content: In the part that is extant, this work paraphrases the entire text of the Tetrabiblos. It includes many short additions and clarifications, while occasionally information is omitted (e.g., the tables of terms preserved in Chapter I.21 of the Ibn al-Ṣalt/Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq version, corresponding to Chapter I.25 in the paraphrase by Ibn al-Farrukhān. Book I (on general astrological principles) is organized in 29 chapters. The close correspondence of the surviving part of the work with the Latin translation of 1236 (A.2.4) makes it likely that Book II (on mundane astrology) comprised 15 chapters and Books III and IV (on individual astrology and nativities) respectively 14 and 10 chapters.
Text: [Istanbul, Üniversitesi, A 6141]
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Bibl.: Keiji Yamamoto, ‘Arī ibun Ridowān no 『Tetorabiburosu chūkai』 ni tsuite (ʿAlī ibn Riḍwān’s Commentary on Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos)’, Bulletin of the Institute for Comprehensive Research of Kyoto Sangyo University 10 (2015), pp. 49–57; Bojidar Dimitrov, Tetrabiblos Syriaca. A Case–Study in Graeco–Semitic Textual Transmission, PhD dissertation, Philipps-Universität Marburg, 2020, pp. 6–9, 157–159, and 166–168; Burnett:202x.
Ed.: A preliminary edition was prepared by Keiji Yamamoto in parallel to his editions of the other two Arabic translations (A.2.1 and A.2.2) but remains unpublished.
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