Scot’s version of the _Sphere_ of Alpetrongi has reached us accompanied by the date of its composition; a distinction which belongs to only one other among his translations, that of the _Abbreviatio Avicennae_. M. Jourdain had the merit of being the first who drew attention to this fortunate circumstance,[147] and he did so by quoting the colophons of two manuscripts of the _Sphere_ discovered by him in the Paris library.[148] One of these closes thus: ‘Praised be Jesus Christ who liveth for ever throughout all time:[149] on the eighteenth day of August, being Friday, at the third hour, _cum aboleolente_,[150] in the year one thousand two hundred and fifty-five.’ The other gives the date thus: ‘The year of the Incarnation of Christ twelve hundred and seventeen.’ These two epochs coincide exactly, as the apparent difference arises from the date being expressed in the first manuscript according to the era of Spain. It is therefore doubly certain that Scot’s version of the _Sphere_ of Alpetrongi was made in the year 1217.[151] In completing this translation Michael Scot anticipated by one year only the great astronomical congress which the King of Castile presently caused to assemble at Toledo. It may very possibly therefore have been one of the versions prepared with a view to this great occasion and designed for the use of the Latin astronomers who might come there. Certain it is that the author was not less fortunate in this than in his previous literary ventures. The text was well chosen, the time of publication opportune, and the _Sphere_ of Alpetrongi as it came from Scot’s hand had a wide circulation and influenced profoundly the astronomical beliefs of the day.[152] CHAPTER VI SCOT TRANSLATES AVERROËS We have already noticed how the commentaries of Avicenna on Aristotle had been translated into Latin at Toledo during the twelfth century, and how Michael Scot had completed that work by his version of the books relating to Natural History. Since the beginning of the thirteenth century, however, another Arabian author of the first rank had become the object of much curiosity in Europe. This was the famous Averroës of Cordova, whose history might fill a volume, so full was it of romantic adventure and literary interest.[153] He was but lately dead, having closed a long and laborious life on the 10th of December 1198, at Morocco, where his body was first laid to rest in the cemetery outside the gate of Tagazout. Born at Cordova in 1126, his name was closely associated with that of his native city, so that after three months had elapsed his corpse was brought thither from Africa, and given honourable and final burial in the tomb of his fathers at the cemetery of Ibn Abbas.