Plato Tiburtinus
Plato Tiburtinus was a 12th-century Italian mathematician, astronomer and translator who lived in Barcelona from 1116 to 1138. He is best known for translating Hebrew and Arabic documents into Latin, and was apparently the first to translate information on the astrolabe from Arabic.
Plato of Tivoli translated the Arab astrologer Albohali's "Book of Birth" into Latin in 1136. He translated Claudius Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos from Arabic to Latin in 1138, the astronomical works of al-Battani, Theodosius' Spherics and the Liber Embadorum by Abraham bar Chiia.
He has worked together with the Jewish mathematician Savasorda. His manuscripts were widely circulated and were among others used by Albertus Magnus and Fibonacci.Works
To him are attributed four works in science-mathematics:
The translations from the Arabic of seven other works are ascribed to Plato:
- Ptolemy’s Quadripartitum,
- The Iudicia Almansoris,
- The De electionibus horarum of Ali ibn Aḥmad al-Imrani,
- The De nativitatibus or De iudiciis nativitatum of Abu 'Ali al-Khaiyat,
- The De revolutionibus nativitatum by Abū Bakr al-Ḥasan,
- The Questiones geomantice or Liber Arenalis scientie by “Alfakini, son of Abizarch” or “son of Abraham”,
- A De pulsibus et urinis by “Aeneas”.
