William of Moerbeke

William of Moerbeke ( Willem van Moerbeke, * 1215, † 1286) was a Flemish clergyman and an important translator of ancient writings.

William was initially Dominican monk, from 1268 he lived in Viterbo, in 1274, he appeared at the Council of Lyon. From 1277 until his death he was bishop of Corinth, a Latin (ie Catholic ) outpost in the Argolid in Orthodox Greece.

He was conversational and correspondent of many scholars of his time, including the philosopher Thomas Aquinas, the naturalist Vitelo and the astronomer Heinrich von Mechelen. The latter devoted Wilhelm his treatise on the astrolabe as well Vitelo dedicated to him his treatise on optics. Wilhelm was the most prolific translator of the High Middle Ages of philosophical, medical, and astronomical texts from Greek into Latin. The quality of his translations is still highly valued today.

He translated the works of Aristotle completely (or he already revised existing translations) and made it so that the Latin West to access, which of the following local reception of Aristotle zugutekam. Reason for William's work as a translator had the dubious quality and the fragmentary nature of the texts available at the time of Aristotle. In Central and Western Europe only a few people dominated ancient Greek, also based some of this Latin translation copies only back translations Syrian versions (see Gerard of Cremona ) and were therefore insufficient. This changed radically with the translations of William, who was able to draw on Greek original texts.

Even mathematical treatises by Archimedes, Heron of Alexandria as well as the institutions Theologica of Proclus, he transferred into the Latin language. The latter developed into one of the most important sources in the revival of Neoplatonic thought in the late Middle Ages.

Later, a humanist criticized William's translations were not "elegant", but praised their reliability. Some of the Greek sources Wilhelms them were lost; without his work these writings were no longer accessible to us.

Older representations had to kick start the translation work by Thomas Aquinas assumed, but this is not accounted for.

Works

  • Aristotle: Opera, lat With Expositiones textuales dubiorum: Contains: De Caelo et mundo, De generatione et corruptione, Meteorologica, De sensu et sensato, De memoria et reminiscentia, De SOMNO et vigilia, De longitudine et brevitate vitae. Übers: Guilelmus de Moerbeka. Cologne 1497 Digitized edition.
  • De generatione animalium. Translatio Guillelmi de Moerbeka. Edidit H. J. Drossaart Lulofs. Desclée de Brouwer, Bruges, 1966 ( Aristotle Latinus 17, 2, 5).
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