The Set of Alfonsine Tables Underlying Giovanni Bianchini’s Planetary Tables

José Chabás; Bernard R. Goldstein

doi:10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41807

Authors

José Chabás Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Bernard R. Goldstein University of Pittsburgh

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41807

Keywords:

Giovanni Bianchini, astronomical tables, Alfonsine astronomy, double argument tables

Abstract

The analysis of astronomical tables has proven to be a powerful tool to understand the transmission of astronomical knowledge. Further, the study of the major sets of tables compiled or in circulation in the Middle Ages has contributed significantly to mapping the thousands of tables preserved in medieval manuscripts. The present paper focuses on the relationship between two specific sets of tables, both in the framework of Alfonsine astronomy: one of hitherto uncertain authorship and a much larger one compiled by the Ferrarese astronomer Giovanni Bianchini (d. after 1469).

Author Biographies

José Chabás , Universitat Pompeu Fabra

José Chabás is professor emeritus at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) and has been working on the history of late medieval and early modern astronomy. His latest book, Computational Astronomy in the Middle Ages: Sets of Astronomical Tables in Latin [Madrid, 2019], surveys the major astronomical tables in that period. He contributed to this article within the framework of the European Research Council project ALFA Shaping a European Scientific Scene: Alfonsine Astronomy (grant agreement 723085), a project in which he remains actively engaged.

Bernard R. Goldstein, University of Pittsburgh

Bernard R. Goldstein, university professor emeritus in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pittsburgh, has been collaborating with José Chabás for close to three decades. Among their joint publications are The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo [Kluwer, 2003]; Essays on Medieval Computational Astronomy [Brill, 2015]; and “The Medieval Moon in a Matrix: Double Argument Tables for Lunar Motion”, Archive for History of Exact Sciences 73 (2019) 335–359.

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