Skip to main content

Constantine, the African, c 1020-1087 (medieval medical scholar and translator)

 Person

Staff Only

Dates

  • Existence: c 1020 - 1087

Biography

Born in Carthage, Constantine studied medicine in Mesopotamia, where he also developed skills in languages and herbal remedies. He returned to Carthage but later fled, having been accused of witchcraft. He reached Italy where he found a position teaching medicine in Salerno. In 1078 he settled in the Benedictine monastery of Montecassino, under Abbot Desiderius, later Pope Victor III. His writings and translations included Arabic and Latin versions of Hippocrates and Galen.

Found in 1 Collection or Record:

Viaticum by Constantine the African with gloss, 13th century

 Part
Identifier: MS 173/ff. 9r-102v
Contents MS 173 contains Viaticum by Constantine the African (Constantinus Africanus). Constantine's text is a Latin translation of a medical manual by a 10th century Arab physician, Abu Ja‛far Ahmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn abī Khālid al-Jazzār, a student of the Arab Jewish physician Isaac Israeli ben Solomon (known as Isaac Judaeus in Europe). Constantine's Latin adaption of the original text followed the same organisational structure of medical knowledge and treatments,...
Dates: 13th century
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Western Medieval Manuscripts / Composite manuscript including two texts