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Gerard of Cremona

Type Figure Region Toledo Time c. 1114–1187 Also known as Gerardo

Gerard of Cremona (c. 1114–1187) was the most important Arabic–Latin translator in 12th-century Toledo;…

Timeline

  1. c. 1114–1135Cremona · LombardyGerard was born in Cremona, Lombardy, and received Latin arts training in Italy. Unable to read Ptolemy's Almagest locally, he resolved to travel west in search of Arabic texts—a motive recorded in a short biography appended by a colleague to his translation.
  2. c. 1144–1160Toledo · ToledoHe went to Toledo after the Reconquista, learning Arabic in order to read the Almagest, and discovering that local libraries held many Greek–Arabic scientific and philosophical manuscripts; he decided to stay and translate systematically.
  3. 1161–1175Toledo · ToledoTranslation activity in Toledo flourished in the 1160s, and Gerard became the most prolific translator. A colleague's catalogue attributes some seventy to eighty translations to him, covering Aristotle, Euclid, Galen, and Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine. Mozarab Galib assisted with the Almagest translation; a Toledo manuscript dates to 1175.
  4. 1176–1187Toledo · ToledoIn his later years he continued revising and translating in Toledo and taught publicly, training assistants. He died in 1187; a colleague appended a catalogue of his translations to a translation of Galen's On the Art as an inventory of his scholarly legacy.

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