L'Abrégé de l'Almageste: un inédit d'Averroès en version hébraïque

Abstract

TheCompendium of the Almagestof Averroes, extant only in Hebrew translation, remains unpublished and hardly studied. The present article aims to make it known. It provides a history of theCompendium: its date of writing, translation into Hebrew, and the transmission, reception, and audience of the Hebrew translation, as well as a preliminary study of the text. This includes an annotated outline of its contents, and a discussion of its sources and their critical use by Averroes. The article also contains a translation of significant extracts from the Prologue, with a brief analysis. TheCompendiumprovides direct and relatively early evidence from a leading protagonist of the 12th-century movement by Andalusian thinkers – mostly Aristotelian philosophers – to criticize and reform Ptolemean astronomy.