Constantine the African and 'Ali Ibn Al-'Abbas Al-Magusi ─ The Pantegni and Related Texts

When the tenth-century Kamil as-sinaa (or al-Kitab al malaki) of Ali ibn al-Abbas al-Magusi was adapted for a Latin-reading audience by Constantine the African in the late eleventh century, the medieval West had, for the first time, the opportunity to use a text which covered the whole of medicine. But the 100-odd extant manuscripts suggest that Constantine's Pantegni was put together over a considerable period of time, and chapters from other Latin and newly-translated Arabic medical works were added to or substituted those of the Kamil. This book is the first to be devoted to Constantine the African: it sheds light on the School of Salerno and the formation of a medical corpus in the High Middle Ages.

Charles Burnett, Ph.D. (Cambridge, 1976), Lecturer in the history of Arabic/Islamic influence in Europe in the Middle Ages at the Warburg Institute, University of London, has written over fifty articles on the transmission of Arabic learning and medieval European culture. His books include an edition of Hermann of Carinthia'sDe essentiis (Brill, 1982) and a collection of essays on Adelard of Bath (Warburg Institute, 1987).Danielle Jacquart is Professor at the Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, Sorbonne), where she holds the chair of "Histoire des sciences au Moyen Age". Her publications deal with medieval medicine and Arabo-Latin translations. She has published:La medicine arabe et l'Occident medieval (Maisonneuve-et-Larose, 1989).