The First Latin Treatise on Ptolemy’s Astronomy: The Almagesti Minor (C. 1200)

The Almagesti minor is one of the most important works of medieval astronomy. The Almagesti minor, probably written in northern France circa 1200, is a Latin summary of the first six books of Ptolemy’s astronomical masterpiece, the Almagest. Also known to modern scholars as the Almagestum parvum, the Almagesti minor provides a clear example of how a medieval scholar understood Ptolemy’s authoritative writing on cosmology, spherical astronomy, solar theory, lunar theory, and eclipses. The author incorporated the findings of astronomers of the Islamic world, such as al-Battaanii, into the framework of Ptolemaic astronomy, and he altered the format and style of Ptolemy’s astronomy in order to make it accord with the author’s ideals of a mathematical science, which were primarily derived from Euclid’s Elements. The Almagesti minor had a profound effect upon astronomical writing throughout the 13th-15th centuries, including the work of Georg Peurbach and Johannes Regiomontanus. In this first volume of the Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus series, Henry Zepeda offers not only a critical edition of this little-studied text, but also a translation of it into English, analysis of both the text and its geometrical figures, and a thorough study of the work’s origins, sources, and long-lasting influence.