Islamic science : crossroad of cultures. An exhibition at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine ... 19 June to 12 November 1985 / [compiled by Nigel Allan].

  • Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine.
Date:
1985
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Islamic science : crossroad of cultures. An exhibition at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine ... 19 June to 12 November 1985 / [compiled by Nigel Allan]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    44/48 (page 38)
    published a number of works relating to oriental history and grammar; the fourth enlarged edition of Purchas his pil^mage published in 1626 includes a section entitled the Saracenicall Empire translated from Arabic by him. His Grammatica Arabica was often reprinted and much used in teaching Arabic in England and elsewhere. The opening shows a table of the Arabic alphabet with the numeric values, names, pronunciation and forms of the individual letters. No.7198 p.l. Geographica Nubiensis, id est accuratissima totius orbis in septem climata divisi descriptio... Recens ex arabico in latinum versa a G Sionata et J. Hesronlta written by al-Sharif al-IdrlsT (d.c. 560/1165) and printed in Paris by H. Blageart in 1619. This work is an abridgement of a descriptive geography originally written in Arabic with 'the title Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq fT ikhtiraq al-afaq which was composed by order of Roger TTi the Norman king of Sicily as a key to a lar^e silver planisphere which the author himself had made. Al-Idfisi's work represents the best example of Arab-Norman scientific collaboration in geography and cartography of the Middle Ages. For several centuries the work was popular in Europe as a text book. The abridgement was among one of the first secular Arabic works printed by the Medici Press in Rome in 1592. It was subsequently translated into Italian in 1600 and was published in the Latin translation of two Maronite Christians, Gabriel Sionita and Joannes Hesronita in Paris in 1619. The copy displayed is distinguished by having the annotations of Edward Pococke (1604-1691) the celebrated orientalist and collector of oriental manuscripts now in the Bodleian Library Oxford. He was at one time the pupil of William Bedwell (1561/2-1632), the father of Arabic studies in England, and was the first occupant of the chair of Arabic established by Archbishop Laud at Oxford. During the Commonwealth period Pococke suffered much political harassment but continued his studies while vicar of the parish of Childrey in Berkshire finally returning to Oxford as professor of Hebrew at the Restoration. The opening shows the third part of the first clime with Pococke's annotations and corrections. No. 3387. pp.12,13. A geographical historic of Africa written in Arabicke and Italian ... wherein ...[is] described ... the regions cities, townes, mountains rivers ... throughout all the north and principall partes of Africa; ... Translated and collected by John Pory. This work was originally written by Leo, the African (c. 890/1485 - after 962/1554) also known as al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzah al-ZayyatT al-GharnafT. Leo was born in Granada, some five years before the fall of the kingdom and his family's exile to Fez where he was educated. His geographical knowledge was based on the medieval Islamic geographical corpus and on direct observations collected from four journeys, the last of which, as Moroccan ambassador to the Ottoman court, took him to Constantinople and then to Egypt, Arabia and Tripoli. Here he was captured by Italian pirates, transported to Italy and given as a slave to Pope Leo X. He converted to Catholicism under the aegis of the Pope whose name he took -36-