Astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula: Abraham Zacut and the Transition from Manuscript to Print

Abstract

The present book is a highly technical study in which the authors describe and analyze the astronomical texts of Abraham Zacut , an outstanding intellectual figure in the Spanish Jewish community who lived, as the title indicates, in a very interesting period: the transition from manuscript to print. Zacut benefited from contact with Christian astronomers in Salamanca who had access to a vast corpus produced by astronomers from all over northern Europe. He also took advantage of the Jewish tradition in astronomy that developed mainly in southern France and Spain during the late Middle Ages. When the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, he moved to Portugal where he remained until 1496. Later, in Tunis, he made an adaptation of one of his works, the H . ibbur, for the year 1501 and prepared, around 1513, a new set of tables for Jerusalem using the Jewish calendar.