Certain dates in the career of John of Seville may be regarded as fairly well fixed. In the Arabic year 529, or 1135 A. D., he translated the _Rudiments of Astronomy_ of Alfraganus (Ahmed b. Muh. b. Ketîr el-Fargânî, or Al-Fargani)[185]; in 1142 A. D. he compiled his own _Epitome of the Art of Astrology_ or _Quadripartite Work of Judgments of the Stars_,[186] consisting of _Isagoge in astrologiam_ and four books of judgments. In 1153 A. D. he translated the _Nativities_ of Albohali[187] (Yahyâ b. Gâlib, Abû Alî el-Chaiyât), if we accept the “John of Toledo” who is said to have translated that treatise as the same person as our John of Spain.[188] John of Spain is sometimes said to have died in 1157, but Förster argued that the Tarasia, queen of Spain, to whom the medical portion of the pseudo-Aristotelian _Secret of Secrets_, translated by John of Spain, was dedicated, was not the queen of Portugal contemporary with Archbishop Raymond of Toledo, but queen of Leon from 1176 to 1180; and in 1175 a monk of Mt. Tabor is called Johannes Hispanus.[189] If a Vienna manuscript is correct in saying that a marvelous cure for a sore heel which it contains was sent to Pope Gregory by John of Spain, the pope meant must be Gregory VIII (1187).[190] There is of course no impossibility in the supposition that the literary career of John of Spain extended from the days of Archbishop Raymond to those of Gregory VIII or Queen Tarasia. Still there is some doubt whether all the works extant under the name John of Spain were composed by the same individual.[191] [Sidenote: Further works by him, chiefly astrological.] Several books dealing with the science of judgments from the stars by John of Spain are included in the bibliography of deserving works of astrology in the _Speculum Astronomiae_ of Albertus Magnus, but are perhaps simply sections of his _Epitome_[192] which, after discussing in the _Isagoge_ the natures of the signs and planets, takes up in turn the four main divisions of judicial astrology, namely; conjunctions and revolutions, nativities, interrogations, and elections. John seems to have translated several astrological treatises by Albumasar and Messahala (Mâ-sâ-allâh), the treatise by Thebit ben Corat on astrological images of which we have already treated, that by Abenragel (ʿAli b. abî’l-Rigâl, abû’l-Hasan) on elections, and the _Introduction to the Mystery of Judgments from the Stars_ by Alchabitius or Alcabitius[193] (ʿAbdelʿazîz b. ʿOtmân el-Qabîsî), which should not be confused with his own somewhat similar _Ysagoge_. Of other translations by John of Spain, such as a portion of the _Secret of Secrets_ of the Pseudo-Aristotle, the twelve experiments with pulverized snakeskin, and Costa ben Luca’s _De differentia spiritus et animae_, we treat elsewhere. He was perhaps also the author of a chiromancy.[194] [Sidenote: John’s experimental astrology.]