The Toledo School and the Latin translation of Greek-Arabic learning
- Date
- 12th century (Gerard of Cremona d. 1187)
- Category
- Culture, arts & philosophy
- Region
- Iberia (Toledo, Castile)
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
After the Christian reconquest of Toledo in 1085, the city's rich Arabic libraries and its mixed population of Arabic-, Hebrew- and Romance-speaking scholars made it the leading centre for translating learning into Latin.
Under the patronage of Archbishop Raymond and his successors, a sustained translation movement gathered there through the twelfth century. Its most prolific figure, Gerard of Cremona (c. 1114-1187), travelled to Toledo around 1140 in search of Ptolemy's Almagest and remained for life, producing with his collaborators Latin versions of more than eighty works. These included Ptolemy's astronomy, numerous treatises of Aristotle, the medical canon of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Galen, the algebra of al-Khwarizmi and Euclid's geometry. This flood of recovered Greek science, enriched by Arabic and Jewish commentary, reached Europe just as its first universities were forming. It reshaped the medieval curriculum, fuelled the scholastic synthesis of faith and reason, and gave Latin Christendom access to centuries of accumulated knowledge in astronomy, mathematics, medicine and philosophy that underpinned later European science.
One piece of history in your inbox, weekly
New empires, events and features as they land — one good email a week. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Empires active in 12th century (Gerard of Cremona d. 1187)
- Song Dynasty960 CE – 1279 CE
- Jurchen Jin Dynasty1115 CE – 1234 CE
- Almoravid Empire1056 CE – 1147 CE
- Abbasid Caliphate750 CE – 1258 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
Related culture, arts & philosophy events
- Zhu Xi completes the Neo-Confucian synthesis and the Four Booksc. 1175-1190
- Birth of Gothic architecture at Saint-Denisc. 1140–1144 (Saint-Denis choir)
- Building of Angkor Wat by Suryavarman IIc. 1122–1150 CE
- Ibn Rushd writes his commentaries on Aristotle1170s–1190s CE
- Rise of the Kingdom of Ife, cradle of Yoruba civilisationc. 1170 CE
- Al-Ghazali completes The Incoherence of the Philosophersc. 1095 CE
Further reading
The wider story
The Story of Art
The best-selling art history ever written, from cave paintings to the modern age.
Get it on Amazon →As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.