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THE LATIN SOURCE OF THE FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN TRANSLATION OF ALHACEN'S DE ASPECTIBUS (VAT. LAT. 4595)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2002

A. Mark Smith
Affiliation:
Department of History, 101 Read Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA

Extract

That the medieval Latin version of Ibn al-Haytham's Kitāb al-Manā[zdotu]ir was translated into Italian in the fourteenth century has been known for well over a century. Recent studies have shown that this translation, which is contained in Vat. Lat. 4595, was instrumental in the composition of Lorenzo Ghiberti's Commentario terzo on art. Some eight years ago, the author of the present article tentatively identified the actual manuscript-source of that translation as MS Royal 12.G.7, which is currently held in the British Library. This study establishes beyond reasonable doubt that his tentative identification was correct: MS Royal 12.G.7 is indeed the Latin source for the Italian translation in Vat. Lat. 4595.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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