ARABIST TRANSLATORS IN ITALY FROMTHE SECOND HALF OF THE 11TH TO THE 13TH CENTURY: COMPOSITION, FIELDS OF ACTIVITY, AND HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Abstract

this article examines the role of Italian translation centres in the transmission of Eastern scientific knowledge to Latin Europe from the second half of the eleventh century to the thirteenth century. Based on a comparative analysis of narrative sources, biobibliographical materials, and translation manuscripts, the study reconstructs the activities of translators who worked in Salerno, Sicily, and Naples and clarifies a number of historiographical confusions concerning their identities and contributions. The research establishes that the translators active in these centres were not limited to a single ethnic or confessional background; rather, they represented a multilingual and multicultural milieu that included Arab, Berber, Italian, Greek, and Jewish scholars. Particular attention is devoted to Constantine the African, Henry Aristippus, Eugenius of Palermo, Faraj ibn Salim, and Jacob Anatoli, whose activities illustrate different models of translation, mediation, and intellectual transfer. The study demonstrates that these translators not only rendered Arabic and Greek works into Latin, but also facilitated the circulation of manuscripts, interpreted technical terminology, adapted texts to new scholarly settings, and, in some cases, produced original works of their own. It concludes that the Italian translation centres constituted one of the principal channels through which medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy entered the intellectual world of Latin Europe and acquired a durable place within its scholarly tradition