Slavic Translations of Scientific Texts from Hebrew in the 15th Century

In the second half of the fifteenth century a series of scientific and philosophical texts, mostly of Arabic origin, was translated from Hebrew in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The translator was certainly a learned Jew collaborating with a Christian scribe who put it in writing in the Cyrillic script. The translated texts include works by Maimonides (Logical Terminology, On Asthma, On Lethal Drugs, On Coitus), Algazel (Intentions of the Philosophers), Rhazes (Book of AL-Mansur), Immanuel b. Yaakov Bonfils (Six Wings), Johannes de Sacrobosco (De Sphaera) and possibly more.

The talk will discuss this corpus of translations in order to elucidate the circumstances of its emergence throug analysis of its makeup, mode of translation and transpiring biases.