Starting around the 13th century, various astronomical texts began making their way into Christian Europe. These texts were largely translated from Arabic.
Among them, was a text that was originally attributed to Ptolemy which discussed the character and astrological implications of comets. Scholars have since concluded that this text is not by Ptolemy, but it was still widely distributed.
This text is one of many that is under investigation for the Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus project. There they provide a scan of a manuscript in the collection of the British Library (Sloane 2030) as well as a transcription of the text.
However, there was no translation. As such, I have attempted my own which is placed below the fold.
Continue reading “Pseudo-Ptolemy’s Treatise on the 9 Types of Comets”