GERARD OF CREMONA

Translator from Arabic into Latin; b. Cremona, Italy, c. 1114; d. Cremona, 1187. After completing early studies in Italy, he was attracted by the new learning available in Toledo, which had been recaptured by the Christians in 1085. Under the auspices of Raymond of Sauvetât, Archbishop of Toledo (1126–51), the city became a lively center of scientific studies and translations. By 1134 Gerard was already in Spain, first as a student of Arabic, then as a prolific translator of works that would transform scholasticism. Unlike his contemporary dominic gundisalvi, he was a translator exclusively.

Ancient catalogues credit him with more than 70 works, although some listed were done by Gerard Sabionetta (13th century). Almost every branch of learning was renewed and reformed because of his translations of aristotle, some of the Greek commentators transmitted through Arabic, Avicenna, Al-kindi, alfarabi, Euclid, and Ptolemy. Among his more important contributions were his translation of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, with the paraphrase of Themistius; Aristotle's De naturali auditu (Physics ), Liber caeli et mundi, De generatione, and Meteora (bks. 1–3); the pseudo-Aristotelian Liber de causis or Liber bonitatis purae (a compilation of extracts from the Elementatio theologica of proclus); Canones medicinae of Avicenna, as well as a substantial part of Avicenna's philosophical work, Shifa; the Almagest of Ptolemy; the best complete translation of Euclid's Elementa geometriae ; Alkindi's De intellectu and De quinque essentiis; and Alfarabi's De intellectu. Through these translations the West came to know a new Aristotle and the best of Greek medicine, astronomy, and mathematics that had long been known and developed by the Muslim.

Bibliography: e. h. gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York 1955) 376–377. g. bonafede, Enciclopedia filosofica (Venice-Rome 1957) 2:665. b. boncompagni, Della vita e delle opere di Gherardo Cremonese (Rome 1851). h. bedoret, "L'Auteur et le traducteur du Liber de causis, ' Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie 41 (1938) 519–533.

[p. glorieux]