A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 2 (of 2): During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our EraThorndike, Lynn
History
A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 2 (of 2): During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era
Thorndike, Lynn
Magic -- History; Science -- History
In the matter of the Latin translation we are on somewhat more certain
ground. John of Spain in the first half of the twelfth century seems
to have translated only the medical portion.[847] Manuscripts of this
partial translation are relatively few,[848] and it was presently
superseded by the complete translation made either in the twelfth or
early thirteenth century[849] by Philip, “the least of his clerics” for
“his most excellent lord, most strenuous in the cult of the Christian
religion, Guido of Valencia, glorious pontiff of the city of Tripoli.”
Philip goes on to say in his dedicatory preface that it was when he was
with Guido in Antioch that they found “this pearl of philosophy, ...
this book which contains something useful about almost every science,”
and which it pleased Guido to have translated from Arabic into Latin.
Although the various printed editions and manuscripts of _The Secret
of Secrets_ in Latin vary considerably, they regularly are preceded
by this ascription of the Latin translation to Philip, and usually
by the other prologues afore-mentioned. Who this Philip was, other
than a cleric of Tripoli, is still undetermined. If he was the same
as the papal physician whom Alexander III in 1177 proposed to send on
a mission to Prester John,[850] he had probably made his translation
before that date. J. Wood Brown would identify him with Philip of
Salerno, a royal notary whose name appears in 1200 on deeds in the
kingdom of Sicily.[851] I have already suggested that possibly he
translated the _Kiranides_.
[Sidenote: Philip’s preface.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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