Of Some Illustrious Men Among the Arabs and the Hebrews.
Beautiful Letters| N° d'inventaire | 23249 |
| Format | 12.5 x 19 |
| Détails | 171 p., paperback with flaps. |
| Publication | Paris, 2020 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782251451077 |
Latin Europe knew little of Rhazes, Avicenna, or Averroes other than the lucubrations that had been elaborated about them, such as having them all live together in Muslim Spain and making Averroes the poisoner of Avicenna out of jealousy. This marks the fundamental difference between the Greco-Arabic translation movement and its Arab-Latin corollary. While the former was concerned with translating, from Greek scholarly literature, biographical collections (such as Porphyry's Philosophical History), philosophical biographies (such as Ptolemy of Alexandria's Vita Aristotelis), and bibliographical ones (such as Galen's On the Order of His Own Books), the latter was not concerned with knowing who the Arab authors were who were to become the authorities of scholarly Europe for several centuries. It was not until the Italian Renaissance that an intellectual consciousness developed in Europe that led to the production of the monumental Bibliotheca universalis (1545) by the Swiss humanist Conrad Gessner. It was in this new historical context that the biographical collection of John Leo Africanus was conceived in Rome in 1527. Its importance was such that it remained an almost undisputed reference until the middle of the 19th century. To convince oneself of the importance of its reception in modern European culture, it is enough to know that the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert literally plundered it by borrowing more than half of its biographies, which are reproduced verbatim in its entries.
Latin Europe knew little of Rhazes, Avicenna, or Averroes other than the lucubrations that had been elaborated about them, such as having them all live together in Muslim Spain and making Averroes the poisoner of Avicenna out of jealousy. This marks the fundamental difference between the Greco-Arabic translation movement and its Arab-Latin corollary. While the former was concerned with translating, from Greek scholarly literature, biographical collections (such as Porphyry's Philosophical History), philosophical biographies (such as Ptolemy of Alexandria's Vita Aristotelis), and bibliographical ones (such as Galen's On the Order of His Own Books), the latter was not concerned with knowing who the Arab authors were who were to become the authorities of scholarly Europe for several centuries. It was not until the Italian Renaissance that an intellectual consciousness developed in Europe that led to the production of the monumental Bibliotheca universalis (1545) by the Swiss humanist Conrad Gessner. It was in this new historical context that the biographical collection of John Leo Africanus was conceived in Rome in 1527. Its importance was such that it remained an almost undisputed reference until the middle of the 19th century. To convince oneself of the importance of its reception in modern European culture, it is enough to know that the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert literally plundered it by borrowing more than half of its biographies, which are reproduced verbatim in its entries.