In the second half of the twelfth century, several parts of Avicenna’s major philosophical work al-Shifa’, known in the Latin world as SuFficientia, that is, the Preface, the almost complete Isagoge (mostly quoted as Logica Avicennae), a chapter of the Posterior Analytics, the Physics proper (more precisely books 1 and 2, as well as a small part of book 3 - generally referred to as Sufficientia, the title of the whole work), the Psychology (Liber de anima seu sextus de naturalibus, generally referred to in the later tradition as Sextus de Naturalibus), and the Metaphysics (Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina, most of the time evoked as Metaphysica) were translated in Toledo into Latin. According to the majority of available manuscripts Avendeuth, which is almost certainly the Latinized form of the name of the Jewish scholar Ibn Da’uid, made the translation of the Preface, the De anima and one chapter of the Isagoge, that is, Chap. 11, entitled De universalibus, which corresponds to Chap. 12 of part one of the Arabic text. Avendeuth always worked with the assistance of a Latin scholar. In the dedicatory letter, which precedes the translation of the De anima, the name of the Latin scholar is specified as Dominicus, who is usually identified with Dominicus Gundissalinus. This latter may have been involved in the translations of the other parts of the Shifa’ as well, but there is no totally compelling external evidence in this respect. The translation of Chap. 7 of part two of the Posterior Analytics is certainly the work of Gundissalinus, once again in collaboration with someone else. It was only conserved in the former’s De divisione philosophiae as Summa Avicenne de convenientia et de differentia scientiarum. Thus far there is no evidence that a complete translation of Avicenna’s Posterior Analytics existed, as suggested by Grignaschi (Janssens 1999:8). A partial translation of Avicenna’s medical work al-Adwiya al-qalbiyya, De medicinis cordialibus, also called De viribus cordis, figures in all manuscripts of the De anima, between Chaps. 4 and 5. Notwithstanding an apparent difference in style, it was almost certainly the work of Gundissalinus and Avendeuth. Of all these translations, the only one that can be precisely dated is that of the De anima. Based on the name of the archbishop that is present in the dedicatory formula, that is, Iohannes, it can be fixed between 1152 and 1166.
Once again in Toledo, during approximately the same period, somewhere between 1170 and 1180, Avicenna’s major medical encyclopedia al-QanUn fl l-tibb, Canon Medicinae, was rendered into Latin. This translation is due to Gerard of Cremona.
Together with these translations of genuine Avicennian texts, the translation of al-(Gazall’s Maqasid needs to be mentioned, since this latter work turns out to be a slightly reworked version of Avicenna’s Persian work Danesh-Nameh (Janssens 2006, VII). This translation also belongs to the Toledo milieu and it resulted from a collaboration, namely, between Gundissalinus and John of Spain.
Either in Spain or in England, Alfred of Shareshill translated near the end of the twelfth or in the beginning of the thirteenth century two chapters of the Meteorology, that is, I, 1 (partially) and 5, of al-Shifa’. The translation is paraphrastic and is known as Liber de mineralibus. It is also designated with the title De congelatione et conglutatione lapidum. It comprises three parts, since it subdivides the first chapter of the Arabic text into two sections. It was believed to be part of Aristotle’s text, although Alfred himself was almost certainly aware of its Avicennian origin. Albert the Great rediscovered its authentic origin (Mandosio and Di Martino 2006:416). Another chapter of Avicenna’s Meteorology, that is, II, 6 was anonymously translated into Latin, in all likelihood at approximately the same period. It circulated as the independent treatise De diluviis.
Around 1230, Michael Scot translated another part of Avicenna’s philosophical encyclopedia al-Shifa, that is, De animalibus. Scot’s translation is mostly designated as Abbrevatio Avicennae. Compared to the original Arabic text, the translation shows both minor and major omissions without offering any explicit indication thereof. Hence, Scot based his translation, dedicated to the Emperor Frederick II, probably on an anonymous Arabic compendium of Avicenna’s work (Van Oppenraay 1999).
About 1240 Hermannus Alemannus, in his turn, translated two passages of the Rhetoric of al-Shifa’, that is, the final part of II, 2 (pp. 73,7-75 of the Arabic edition) and the second half of IV, 1 (pp. 206,8-212 of the Arabic edition). He inserted them in his Latin translation of the Arabic version of Aristotle’s Rhetoric.
During the late 1270s, the translation of the Physics was continued at Burgos by Johannes Gunsalvus, in collaboration with a certain Salomon: it started where the old translation had abruptly stopped. But also this time, the text was not completely translated: the translators omitted the last four chapters of book 3 as well as the entire book 4. The same scholars also provided the translation of other natural parts of the Shifa’, that is, De caelo, De generatione et corruptione, De actionibus et passionibus, and Meteorologica. The inventory catalogue of the Sorbonne of 1338 mentions an anonymous Latin translation of the seventh natural part, that is, De vegetabilibus (The Plants), but up to now no trace of it has been found.
Very small fragments of Avicenna’s al-Isharat wa-l-tanblhat, Pointers and Reminders, and al-Najat, Salvation, are present in Latin translation in Raimundus Marti’s Pugio fidei, a work he wrote in 1278.
In 1306, Arnold of Villanova made in Barcelona a complete translation of Avicenna’s Treatise on Cardiac Drugs, De viribus cordis.
The first printed editions of Avicennian works are to be dated at the end of the fifteenth century. Regarding philosophical texts, the oldest concerns the De anima, published at Venice, c. 1485. Ten years later, once more at Venice, the Metaphysics followed, and some 5 years later the De animalibus was published. The famous Opera Philosophica, including the translations of Isagoge, Physics (old translation), De anima, De animalibus, and Metaphysics (besides that of two pseudo-Avicennian treatises, that is, De caelo and De substantiis primis et secundis, and the treatise De intellectu attributed explicitly to al-Farabi) were edited by the Augustinian monks at Venice in 1508.
Finally, Andreas Alpago (d. 1522) translated for the first time into Latin several philosophical treatises of Avicenna, that is, Compendium de anima, Libellus deAlmahad (on resurrection), De definitionibus and De divisione scientiarum, and, moreover, fragments of the Notes (Ta‘llqat), entitled Aphorismi de anima and of an Answer to Ten Questions Posed by al-Blrunl, entitled Quaesita accepta ex libello Avicenneae de quaesitis. These translations influenced later authors, as for example John Dee (Burnett 2008:50), but more research is needed to determine the precise nature of this influnce.
World History
