Civilization / Foundations of Civilization

Latin Translation Movement (Toledo)

In 12th-century Toledo and other Spanish and Sicilian towns, scholars turn Arabic and Greek science into Latin and give Europe's new schools Ptolemy, Euclid and Aristotle.

After Toledo fell to Castile in 1085, its cathedral library became a translation workshop under Archbishop Raymond (1126-1151). Gerard of Cremona came in 1167 to find Ptolemy's Almagest and is credited with about 87 books translated from Arabic by 1187, among them Euclid's Elements, al-Khwarizmi's algebra and works of Aristotle; his Almagest stayed Europe's astronomy text until Copernicus. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas built on these Latin versions, and Roger Bacon drew on them for optics and astronomy.