Speaker
Description
In the beginning of the fourteenth century the Byzantine scholar and statesman Theodore Metochites (1270–1332) embarked upon a project to produce an epitome of Ptolemy’s Almagest. His resulting work, the Stoicheiosis astronomike, does not draw on any of the more recent astronomical parameters that had already entered Greek circulation from Arabic and Persian sources, a fact which stands out further when juxtaposed with Metochites’ statement that his teacher, Manuel Bryennios, had learned astronomy from a man who had come from Persia. Nevertheless, Metochites’ ambition to produce a text on Ptolemy that was accessible to students – and the course of study which he embarked upon to accomplish this – has resonances with didactic approaches to Ptolemy that were current in the neighboring Islamicate world. This presentation will explore the role of the Stoicheiosis astronomike in the wider revival of astronomical study during the Palaiologan Renaissance, along with how this work’s goals compare to those of Arabic editions of the Almagest produced two generations earlier.
