As a border crosser between the Christian, Jewish and Muslim worlds, he sought harmony between the religious communities. He was a scholar who was already famous in his lifetime and who expanded the canon of knowledge of that time. Ibn Butlan belonged to the Nestorian Christian tradition, whose members had been persecuted by the church of the Roman Empire for centuries. He was called Elluchasem Elimithar in Europe.
Melodiarum motus animi affectus imitans translation full#
Ibn Butlan (died 1066) was an Arab Christian physician and philosopher whose full name was Abu al-Hasan al-Mukhtar ibn al-Hasan ibn ‘Abdun Ibn Sa’dun ibn Butlan. He also played with the word "table", which, on the one hand, referred to the unusual presentation, but on the other hand was a common word for dining table and thus highlighted the nutritional advice. The translator, Michael Herr, gave the work the name "Schachtafelen der Gesuntheyt" (Chessboards of Health) because the unusual presentation of the contents in tabular form reminded him of a similarly partitioned chessboard. The German translation, illustrated with woodcuts by Hans Weiditz, followed only two years later. The Latin "Tacuinum Sanitatis" was first printed in 1531. The document aroused great interest, as attested by the numerous surviving copies: 25 manuscripts and several ornately decorated codices have been found in Europe. This made the work accessible to the Latin-speaking world of European scholars, among whom Arab medicine was held in high regard.
The first Latin translations from the 13th century seized on the title and changed it to Tacuinum. It consisted exclusively of tables, which is why it received the name Takwim, which is "board" or "table" in Arabic. The original Arab manuscript of Ibn Butlan was never printed.