The variegated cultural program of Alfonso X is characterized by a strong interest in the scientific areas, specifically in astronomy, also thanks to the recovery and translation of texts performed by the School of Toledo at his court. The "Libros de Saber de Astronomía" (henceforth, the Libros) is an example of the quoted interest: it is a collection, in Castilian, of treaties on scientific subjects, including the study of the so-called "fixed stars", the heavens and instruments. There is a general agreement concerning the dependence of the Libros on a large number of Arabic sources.
Despite its vastness, the Libros has been studied only discontinuously: the only complete critical edition is Rico y Sinobas (1863-1867), which does not include fragmentary witnesses. Nonetheless, the Libros is not only a crucial compendium of the astronomical lore of its time, but also an indirect witness of the Arab-Islamic scientific tradition, which is worthy of a complete discussion. For these reasons, there is a reinvigorated interest in the Libros by the historicists of Science.
This project aims to study the tradition of the Libros on a varied series of aspects: the sampling of its witnesses in their different versions; the investigation of Arabic sources by detection of intertextual cross references. Thus, the focus will be on the translation methods adopted among the scribals at Alfonso X's court, and the comparison of stellar coordinates and of the magnitude scale of the Alphonsine Tables, also by detecting and considering the inhomogeneities of the original data.
Our intention is to shed light on the cultural milieu of the Libros and to achieve an advancement both in textuality and in history of Science in Romance and Arab-Islamic framework, taking advantage of convergences between classically distant disciplines. The output of the project will be the publication of the proceedings of an international congress and a website will illustrate the development of the work.
The project is highly innovative, since it aims at filling a gap in the current framework of scientific studies dedicated to the Alfonsine literature, as the "Libro del saber" has not been studied since 150 years. To date, the only critical edition of the of the Libros del saber is that by Rico y Sinobas (1863-1867), which was only based on complete manuscripts. The reconstruction of the textual history of this text, which will start from the analysis of all the available witnesses ¿ we are aware of some 12 codices ¿ will shed light on:
A) the Arabic sources which, so far, are still largely unknown: it seems that al-Sufi (AD 903-986) is one of the major sources, at least concerning the Arabic version of Ptolemy's star catalogue;
B) the translation methods of multilingual texts within the Arabic-Islamic and Spanish civilization during XIII century;
C) the state of the studies dedicated to the history of science, with particular attention given to the magnitude scale of the Alfonsine tables.
Beside the fact that, to date, a complete critical edition of the of the Libros del saber does not exist, studies dedicated to its technical terminology related to the construction of the instruments are also lacking. Yet, this technical vocabulary represents a consistent part of the "Libro del saber". Oiva J. Tallgren (1878-1941) in his "Los Nombres árabes de las estrellas y la transcripción alfonsina" (already mentioned) offered a study of the transcriptions of the Arabic names given to the stars, as they are described in the Book of the eighth sphere. However, the possibility of significant lexicographic acquisitions seems considerable higher studying the Libros del saber and its Arabic sources.
Cárdenas argued that the nature of the Alfonsine treaty was still relatively unknown and that the related studies ¿[...] continue to propagate errors and misconceptions[...]¿ (Cárdenas, 1974, p. XV). 45 years later, it seems that the state of the acquisitions did not advance.
Some scholars, e.g. Bistué 2013, strongly argue that the main difficulty in dealing with of the Alfonsine treatise lies in its multilingual nature. Those who studied the text, actually focused on the evolution of a unitary language (Spanish) and on the influence that other languages had on it (e.g., Arabic). This approach led to the lack of interest for the multilingual nature of the text itself - which is especially apparent in the description of the figures in Latin, Arabic, Greek and Castilian.
It is our intention to exploit this, apparently problematic, peculiarity of the Libros del saber through the synergy of the different members of the team and their respective areas of expertise: Arabic and Arab-Islamic history, Romance philology, astronomy and history of astronomical instruments. The strength and innovativeness of the project relies in the multi-disciplinary approach to the text and can be expanded further. Who were the beneficiaries of this treatise? What is the reason of the little success of the text - especially the part on the construction of instruments - despite being crucial for the history of the discipline? Which were the intellectual limits of the scholars? Answering to these questions, that is one of our goals, will bring the study of the multi-layer textual analysis of the "Libros del saber" to a wider and deeper level of knowledge.
The project will lead to considerable advancements in the studies related to the linguistic and textual history of the scientific treatises written in vernacular with oriental influence. This kind of texts will be analysed within the framework of a wider perspective of studies, which is that of the conveyance of scientific knowledge and of the history of ideas.