Bonaventure of Siena (Italian : Bonaventura da Siena) was a Tuscan scribe and translator who worked at the court of Alfonso X of Castile in the 1260s, when Alfonso was claiming the Holy Roman Empire. His most famous work is a translation of the Book of Muhammad's Ladder into Latin and French.
Nothing is known of Bonaventure's family or of his biography before he arrived at the court of Alfonso X in Seville. He arrived after Alfonso's election as Holy Roman emperor, along with may other expatriates from the Ghibelline city of Siena. [1] The earliest reference to him is from 1264, when he was a "notary and scribe of the lord king". [2] On 10 May 1266, on Alfonso X's instruction, he drew up the act by which the infante Fernando de la Cerda named the men who would represent him at his proxy marriage to Blanche, daughter of Louis IX of France. [3]
On 18 January 1284, Peter III of Aragon named a certain Filippo Bonaventura da Siena, recommended to him by Cardinal Latino Malabranca Orsini, as a member of his familia regis . This may have been Bonaventure's son. [1] His presence in Spain would be explained by his father's earlier contacts there, although the exact purpose of his visit is unknown. [4]
Bonaventure was commissioned by Alfonso X to translate the Book of Muhammad's Ladder into Latin and possibly also French. He worked from Abraham of Toledo's Spanish translation of an Arabic original. [5] A note in the only surviving French manuscript indicates that the French translation was completed in May 1264. [5] [6] Some doubts have been raised about the ascription of the French translation to Bonaventure. It has been argued that he only produced the Latin translation shortly before 1264, while the French translation was made from the Latin shortly after by an anonymous translator from Provence. [7]
He wrote an original preface to the Latin translation, addressed to Alfonso. [1]
Year 1284 (MCCLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
Alfonso X was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1 June 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germany on 1 April. He renounced his claim to Germany in 1275, and in creating an alliance with the Kingdom of England in 1254, his claim on the Duchy of Gascony as well.
Bonaventure was an Italian Catholic Franciscan bishop, cardinal, scholastic theologian and philosopher.
Sancho IV of Castile called the Brave, was the king of Castile, León and Galicia from 1284 to his death. Following his brother Ferdinand's death, he gained the support of nobles who declared him king instead of Ferdinand's son Alfonso. Faced with revolts throughout his reign, before he died he made his wife regent for his son, who became Ferdinand IV.
Ferdinand de la Cerda was the heir apparent to the Crown of Castile as the eldest son of Alfonso X and Violant of Aragon. His nickname, de la Cerda, means "of the bristle" in Spanish. There are various accounts of the origin of this name, including that it was a reference to being born with a full head of hair or that he was born with a hairy mole, resembling a bristle or mane, on his chest or back according to different accounts.
Saint Bonaventure was an Italian philosopher and theologian.
The Toledo School of Translators is the group of scholars who worked together in the city of Toledo during the 12th and 13th centuries, to translate many of the Islamic philosophy and scientific works from Classical Arabic into Medieval Latin.
A number of biographies of Muhammad were written in Latin during the 9th to 13th centuries.
The Kitab al-Mi'raj is a book by al-Qushayri concerning the Miraj, that is, Muhammad's ascension into Heaven following his miraculous one-night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. The book is divided into seven chapters, and was written in Arabic using the Naskh script.
María Alfonso Téllez de Meneses, known as María de Molina, was queen consort of Castile and León from 1284 to 1295 by marriage to Sancho IV of Castile, and served as regent for her minor son Ferdinand IV and later her grandson Alfonso XI of Castile (1312-1321).
Alfonso X of Castile, also known as Alfonso the Wise, ruled from 1252 until 1284. One of Alfonso’s goals for his kingdom was to lift Castile out of the Dark Ages by producing a united, educated, artistic, and religious population. His desire to bring Castile into the mainstream of high civilization led to a boom of cultural activity, including the production and translation of a great deal of literature. The literature produced during his reign was intended to aid him in achieving his goal by giving the common people of Castile access to great intellectual works. Therefore, all of the prose attributed to Alfonso X’s efforts was written in the language of the common people, Castilian, rather than Latin, which was the language of prestige at that time. Although the works are generally attributed to Alfonso X, being a king with other business to deal with he did not himself write most of them. Instead, Alfonso’s role was that of choosing works to be produced and translated, funding the projects, selecting the true authors of the work, overseeing the production, and occasionally contributing personally.
Enrico Cerulli was an Italian scholar of Somali and Ethiopian studies, a governor and a diplomat.
Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Abd al-Haqq was a Marinid ruler of Morocco. He was the fourth son of Marinid founder Abd al-Haqq, and succeeded his brother Abu Yahya in 1258. He died in 1286. He was the son of Abd al-Haqq I and Oum el-Iman bint Ali el-Bethary, a Zenata woman. Some sources add her mother to be known as Oum el Youm and a daughter of a Zenata clan leader of the Tafersit region.
The Collationes in Hexaemeron are an unfinished series of theological lectures given by St. Bonaventure in Paris between Easter and Pentecost 1273.
Alfonso Fernández el Niño was a Spanish nobleman, the illegitimate son of King Alfonso X of Castile and Elvira Rodríguez de Villada. He was the lord of Molina and Mesa through his marriage to Blanca Alfonso de Molina, daughter of the infante Alfonso of Molina and niece of King Alfonso IX of León.
The Romance of Muhammad is an Old French romance about the life of Muhammad in octosyllabic couplets. It was written by Alexandre du Pont in 1258 in Laon based on the earlier Otia de Machomete, a Latin poem by Walter of Compiègne. At 1,996 verses, it is almost twice as long as the Otia. It is preserved in a single manuscript in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fonds français 1553, from the late 13th century.
Abraham of Toledo, also known as Abraham Alfaquín and Abraham ibn Waqar, was an Iberian Jewish physician and translator of the Toledo School of Translators.
The Book of Muḥammad's Ladder is a first-person account of the Islamic prophet Muḥammad's night journey (isrāʾ) and ascent to heaven (miʿrāj), translated into Latin and Old French from traditional Arabic materials. Although presented as Muḥammad's words and purportedly recorded by Muḥammad's cousin Ibn ʿAbbās, the work is in fact spurious and dates to the 13th century.
The Kitāb al-wāḍiḥ bi-l-ḥaqq, known in Latin as the Liber denudationis, is a Copto-Arabic apologetic treatise against Islam. It was written by a Muslim convert to Christianity, Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ, around 1010 in Fāṭimid Egypt. Its purpose is to provide a refutation of Islam on the basis of the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth (tradition). It was translated into Latin in the 13th century, probably in Toledo. It had much greater influence in translation than in its original language.
Juan Gil de Zamora, known in Latin as Aegidius Zamorensis, was a Castilian Franciscan friar and prolific writer of the literary circle around Alfonso X. He wrote hagiography, history, music theory, natural science, poetry and sermons.