Hermannus Alemannus (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for Herman the German) translated
Arabic philosophical works into
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
. He worked at the
Toledo School of Translators
The Toledo School of Translators ( es, Escuela de Traductores de Toledo) is the group of scholars who worked together in the city of Toledo during the 12th and 13th centuries, to translate many of the Judeo-Islamic philosophies and scientific w ...
around the middle of the thirteenth century (from approximately 1240 to 1256) and is almost certainly to be identified with the Hermannus who was bishop of
Astorga in
León from 1266 until his death in 1272.
Work
His translations have been identified from
prologue
A prologue or prolog (from Greek πρόλογος ''prólogos'', from πρό ''pró'', "before" and λόγος ''lógos'', "word") is an opening to a story that establishes the context and gives background details, often some earlier story that ...
s and
colophons in the surviving manuscripts, three of which are dated. They are: the
Rhetoric, comprising the almost complete text of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
interspersed with portions of
Averroes
Ibn Rushd ( ar, ; full name in ; 14 April 112611 December 1198), often Latinized as Averroes ( ), was an
Andalusian polymath and jurist who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, psy ...
' middle commentary and short fragments from
Avicenna and
Alfarabi
Abu Nasr Muhammad Al-Farabi ( fa, ابونصر محمد فارابی), ( ar, أبو نصر محمد الفارابي), known in the West as Alpharabius; (c. 872 – between 14 December, 950 and 12 January, 951)PDF version was a renowned early Isl ...
; the introductory section of Alfarabi's commentary on the Rhetoric; Averroes' middle commentary on the
Nicomachean Ethics[See Fidora and Akasoy] (Toledo, 1240); an Arabic epitome of the Ethics known as the ''Summa Alexandrinorum'' (1243 or 1244); and the middle commentary on the
Poetics (Toledo, 1256), this last being known as the ''Poetria''.
References
See also
*''The Cambridge History of Later
Medieval Philosophy
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy that existed through the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century until after the Renaissance in the 13th and 14th centuries. Medieval philosophy, ...
: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of
Scholasticism, 1100-1600'', editors:
Norman Kretzmann,
Anthony Kenny,
Jan Pinborg ; associate editor: Eleonore Stump. Cambridge
ambridgeshire; New York :
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer.
Cambridge University Pre ...
, c1982. pp. 59–60.
* Pérez González, Maurilio. ''Herman el Alemán, traductor de la Escuela de Toledo: Estado de la cuestión''. Minerva: Revista de filología clásica, ISSN 0213-9634. Volum 6 (1992), pàgines 269-284.
* Fidora, A. and Akasoy, A.A. ''Hermannus alemannus und die alia traslatio der Nikomachischen Ethik''. Bulletin de philosophie médiévale, ISSN 0068-4023. Volum 44 (2002), pàgines 79-94.
Arabic–Latin translators
13th-century translators
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