Toledo translation school
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Toledo Translation School was a crucial institution during the European Middle ages. It was renowned in its time as a school teaching the Latin and Arabic languages. The school was founded and supported over a period (1127-1152) by Archbishop Raimondo of Toledo.[1] were Jews, Muslims, Christians, monks and scholars from Belgium, Italy, Germany and elsewhere. Texts and linguistic knowledge were disseminated widely.
It was primarily known for two things:
- It housed one of the greatest Arabic, Latin and Spanish libraries (the other was that of Abd al Rahman III) during the middle ages of Arabic works captured from former Muslim cities.
- A great many of the translations of major works specially Arabic/Muslim scientific, mathematical, pharmacological, botanical and medical texts, Greek works and religious works and some Hebrew into Latin, and Castilian were done here.
Many of the Hebrew and Arabic texts were in turn, translations from Greek. The translations spread out over Christendom. The Islamic world was relatively advanced, in medicine, sciences, chemistry, mathematics, and other areas. Works such as mathematical treatises by Archimedes, Aristotle's Metaphysics, and Euclid's Elements of Geometry, were translated not from the original Greek but Arabic, the language in which they were extant in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Translators supported by Raymund were Johannes Avendehut Hispanus, a Spanish Jew who translated Avicena, Domingo Gundisalvo, Archdeacon of Cuéllar, Gherardus Cremonensis who translated Ptolemy's Almagest, and Mark of Toledo who translated the Koran.
King Alfonso X of Castile promoted the Toledo site and opened schools in Seville and Murcia (1269). Since Castilian was the lingua franca and Spanish scholars were present, Spanish prose became more Arabic and even more Latinized, a language suitable for learned discourse.
