Born Castile, (Spain), 1221
Died Castile, (Spain), 1284
King Alfonso X reigned from 1252 until 1284. He was a patron of literature and learning and made a great effort to recover Arabic and, very especially, Andalusian astronomical materials by translating them into Spanish, thus becoming a pioneer in the use of the vernacular as a scientific language. Later, probably coinciding with the period (1256–1275) in which he aspired to become the Emperor of Germany, he had some of these works retranslated into Latin. The highest expression of this cultural policy can be found in his Alfonsine Tables, in which we find an aspiration to universality very much in keeping with a project of producing a set of “imperial” astronomical tables.
His collaborators were a Muslim convert to Christianity (Bernardo el Arábigo), and eight Christians, of whom four were Spaniards (Fernando de Toledo, Garci Pérez, Guillén Arremón d'Aspa, and Juan d'Aspa), and four Italians (John of Cremona, John of Messina,...
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Selected References
Alfonso el Sabio (1961). Libro de las Cruzes, edited by Lloyd A. Kasten and Lawrence B. Kiddle. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientifícas.
——— (1999). Libros del saber de astronomía del rey Alfonso X el Sabio. 2 Vols. Barcelona: Planeta DeAgostini. (A facsimile of the royal manuscript Libros del saber de astronomía.)
Ballesteros, Antonio (1963). Alfonso X el Sabio. Barcelona: Salvat. (The standard biography of Alfonso X. Reprinted with important indexes missing in the original publication, Barcelona: El Albir, 1984.)
Bossong, Georg (1978). Los canones de Albateni. Tubingen: Niemeyer.
Chabás, José (1998). “Astronomy in Salamanca in the Mid‐fifteenth Century: The Tabulae resolutae.” Journal for the History of Astronomy 29: 167–175.
——— (2000). “Astronomía alfonsí en Morella a finales del siglo XIV.” Cronos 3: 381–391.
Chabás, José and Bernard R. Goldstein (2003). The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Comes, Mercè (1991). Ecuatorios andalusíes: Ibn al‐Samh, al‐Zarqālluh y Abū‐l‐Salt. Barcelona.
Comes, Mercè, Roser Puig, and Samsó Julio (eds.) (1987). De Astronomia Alphonsi Regis: Proceedings of the Symposium on Alfonsine Astronomy Held at Berkeley (August 1985) together with Other Papers on the Same Subject. Barcelona: Instituto “Millás Vallicrosa” de Historia de la Ciencia Árabe.
Comes, Mercè, Honorino Mielgo, and Julio Samsó (eds.) (1990). “Ochava espera” y “Astrofísica”: Textos y estudios sobre las fuentes árabes de la astronomía de Alfonso X. Barcelona: Instituto “Millás Vallicrosa” de Historia de la Ciencia Árabe.
D'Agostino, Alfonso (1979). Il “Libro sulla magia dei segni” ed altri studi di filologia spagnola. Brescia.
——— (1992). Astromagia. Naples: Liguori.
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Goldstein, Bernard R. and José Chabás (2001). “The Maximum Solar Equation in the Alfonsine Tables.” Journal for the History of Astronomy 32: 345–348.
Goldstein, Bernard R., José Chabás, and José Luis Mancha (1994). “Planetary and Lunar Velocities in the Castilian Alfonsine Tables.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 138: 61–95.
Hilty, Gerold (1955). “El libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas.” Al‐Andalus 20: 1–74.
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——— (2005). El libro conplido em los Iudizios de las Estrellas. Partes 6a8. Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo.
Kasten, Lloyd A., John Nitti and W. Jonxis‐Henkemans (1997). The Electronic Texts and Concordances of the Prose Works of Alfonso X, El Sabio. 7 pp. +1 CD‐ROM. Madison, Wisconsin.
Millás Vallicrosa, José María (1943–1950). Estudios sobre Azarquiel. Madrid‐Granada.
——— (1956). “Una nueva obra astronómica alfonsí: El Tratado del cuadrante ‘sennero'.” Al‐Andalus 21: 59–92.
North, J. D. (1996). “Just Whose Were the Alfonsine Tables?” In From Baghdad to Barcelona: Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences in Honour of Prof. Juan Vernet, edited by Josep Casulleras and Julio Samsó. Vol. 1, pp. 453–475. Barcelona: Instituto “Millás Vallicrosa” de Historia de la Ciencia Árabe.
Pingree, David (1986). Picatrix: The Latin Version of the Ghāyat al‐hakīm. London: Warburg Institute.
Poulle, Emmanuel (1984). Les tables alphonsines avec les canons de Jean de Saxe. Paris: C.N.R.S.
——— (1988). “The Alfonsine Tables and Alfonso X of Castille.” Journal for the History of Astronomy 19: 97–113.
Procter, Evelyn S. (1951). Alfonso X of Castile, Patron of Literature and Learning. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rico y Sinobas, Manuel (1863–1867). Libros del saber de astronomía del rey D. Alfonso X de Castilla, copilados, anotados y comentados por Don Manuel Rico y Sinobas. 5 Vols. Madrid. Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas Físìcas y Naturels (This complete edition [which includes the text of the Spanish canons of the Alfonsine Tables] is of poor quality.)
Romano, David (1971). “Le opere scientifiche di Alfonso X e l'intervento degli ebrei.” In Oriente e Occidente nel Medioevo: Filosofia e Scienze. Convegno Internazionale 9–15 aprile 1969, pp. 677–711. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Reprinted in De historia judía hispánica, Barcelona, 1991, pp. 147–181.
Roth, Norman (1990). “Jewish Collaborators in Alfonso's Scientific Work.” In Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and His Thirteenth‐Century Renaissance, edited by Robert I. Burns, pp. 59–71 and 223–230. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Samsó, Julio (1994). Islamic Astronomy and Medieval Spain. Aldershot: Variorum.
Swerdlow, Noel M. (1974). “The Origin of the Gregorian Civil Calendar.” Journal for the History of Astronomy 5: 48–49.
——— (1977). “A Summary of the Derivation of the Parameters in the Commentariolus from the Alfonsine Tables with an Appendix on the Length of the Tropical Year in Abraham Zacuto's Almanach Perpetuum.” Centaurus 21: 201–213.
Vernet, Juan (1978). “Un texto árabe de la corte de Alfonso X el Sabio.” Al‐Andalus 43: 405–421.
——— (ed.) (1981). Textos y estudios sobre astronomía española en el siglo de Alfonso X. Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas; Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.
——— (ed.) (1983). Nuevos estudios sobre astronomía española en el siglo de Alfonso X. Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientifícas.
Viladrich, Mercè (1982). “On the Sources of the Alphonsine Treatise Dealing with the Construction of the Plane Astrolabe.” Journal for the History of Arabic Science 6: 167–171.
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Samsó, J. (2007). Alfonso X. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_33
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