Constantine the African

Timeline

1. c. 1020–1055Carthage · CarthageBorn c. 1020 near Carthage in Ifriqiya, fluent in Arabic. Early Latin legends say he traded and traveled, but details are not fully reliable; North Africa and the Islamic medical milieu were his source of knowledge.
2. c. 1055–1070Maghreb and the Near East · Islamic worldIn the Islamic world he encountered Ali ibn Abbas's Kitab al-Mansuri, Ibn al-Jazzar's Viaticum, and the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions preserved in Arabic, giving him the textual basis for rendering them into Latin.
3. c. 1070–1077Salerno · SalernoAppeared at Salerno in the 1070s, introducing Arabic medicine to the South Italian medical school circle. Began adapting the Kitab al-Mansuri into the Latin Pantegni and translated various practical medical works, extending the Salerno curriculum beyond its existing Latin compilations.
4. 1077–1087Monte Cassino · Monte CassinoEntered the monastery of Monte Cassino, where under Abbot Desiderius he continued translating works such as the Viaticum. Died on the mountain in 1087. His translations became core textbooks of twelfth-century Latin medicine and influenced the Toledo translation movement.