Burgundio of Pisa

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Burgundio of Pisa

fl. c. 1150

Italian translator who rendered several texts by Galen into Latin. These translations, straight from Greek, represent a somewhat rare circumstance in the transmittal of classical knowledge to medieval Europe: more often than not, texts from ancient Greece first made their way to the Middle East, where they were translated into Arabic before eventually appearing as Latin texts in the West. Burgundio apparently traveled to Constantinople at one point, and on orders from Pope Eugenius III, also translated works by the theologian St. John Damascene.