Fragments from the Almagest of Ptolemy

Other Notes: These eight vellum folios consist of two fragments from an Arabic translation of the most influential astronomical treatise prior to the time of Copernicus, the Almagest, which was written in Greek in the 2nd century AD by the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy. It was from its Arabic title, al-Majistz, that Ptolemy’s work received the name by which it is generally known today. Four Arabic versions of the treatise were prepared in the 9th century, though only two are extant: that by al-Hajjaj, completed in AH 212 (AD 827-8), and that by Ishaq ibn Hunayn and later revised by Thabit ibn Qurrah in AH 288 (AD gor). The fragments in the Khalili Collection are from the second version, for they correspond, with minor variant readings, to passages in a manuscript preserved now in the British Library, one of only two recorded copies of the second half of that Arabic version.