• DOI:10.1177/002182868601700202
• Corpus ID: 118597258

The Star Catalogue Commonly Appended to the Alfonsine Tables

@article{Kunitzsch1986TheSC,
  title={The Star Catalogue Commonly Appended to the Alfonsine Tables},
  author={Paul Kunitzsch},
  journal={Journal for the History of Astronomy},
  year={1986},
  volume={17},
  pages={89 - 98}
}

• P. Kunitzsch
• Published 1 May 1986
• Physics
• Journal for the History of Astronomy

In earlier works on the history of star names! the Alfonsine Tables, or "the authors of the Alfonsine Tables", or summarily "the Alfonsinians", were often made responsible for the introduction of new Arabic material into the corpus of star names traditionally transmitted, and continuously used until today, in mediaeval Western, and modern, astronomy. Owing to the knowledge we now have of a considerably larger number of original sources, both Oriental and Occidental, and our better understanding of their historical interdependence, we are now in a position to examine and revise the judgement on the star catalogue included in the Alfonsine Tables. It may be remembered that the Alfonsine Tables were a set of astronomical tables for chronology, for the Sun, Moon, and planets, etc., accompanied by an explanatory introduction (quite in the manner of the Arabic-Islamic zfjes) , which were compiled and composed by order of King Alfonso X of Castile (reigned 1252-84). Of the Old Castilian original version of the tables made in Castile around 1263to 1276, only the introductory text has survived.s The Old Spanish text was of no major influence outside Spain. In the first decades of the fourteenth century, however, a Latin version of the Alfonsine Tables was constructed in Paris which later became the most influential handbook of practical astronomy in Europe until the sixteenth century or even later.' In what follows, when we speak of the Alfonsine Tables, we always refer to their Latin version. Like every complete zij, or work of astronomical tables, the Alfonsine Tables also contain a star catalogue. When we examine it we find at once that the star catalogue accompanying the Alfonsine Tables is nothing else but Ptolemy's star catalogue in the Almagest, in the wording of Gerard of Cremona's Latin translation made in Toledo about 1175from the Arabic, save for the values of the longitudes (in the coordinates). These were increased against Ptolemy's, for precession, by 17°8' for an assumed epoch 1252, i.e., adopting the value used in several star tables and in the complete Ptolemaic star catalogue included in Alfonso's Libros del Sabers The Alfonsine Tables proved very popular and were circulated in innumerable manuscripts. The star catalogue is included in many of these copies, but it is also transmitted separately in many manuscripts (where naturally it is easily recognized from the 'Alfonsine' longitude value, Ptolemy + 17°8').5 The popularity and dissemination of the Alfonsine Tables were certainly increased by several printed editions which, later on, became highly influential in the formation of the nomenclature of the stars. Of these editions I have examined seven: Alfontij regis castelle illustrissimi celestium motuum tabule, Venice 1483 [henceforth called at1]; Tabule astronomice Alfonsi Regis, Venice 1492 [henceforth called at2]; Tabule astronomice Diui Alfonsi Regis, Venice 1518(at the end of the book: 1521); Alfonsi Hispaniarum Regis Tabule, Venice 1524 [henceforth called at4]; Divi Alphonsi... Regis Astronomicae tabulae, Paris 1545; the same, Paris 1553 (identical in the text to the preceding edition of 1545);and