The ''Alfonsine Tables'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''Alphonsine Tables'', provided data for computing the position of the Sun,

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

and

planet A planet is a large, Hydrostatic equilibrium, rounded Astronomical object, astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets b ...

s relative to the fixed stars. The tables were named after

Alfonso X of Castile Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, ; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was King of Castile, Kingdom of León, León and Kingdom of Galicia, Galicia from 1 June 1252 until his death in 1284. During the April 1257 Imperial election, election of 1 ...

, who sponsored their creation. They were compiled in

Toledo, Spain Toledo ( ; ) is a city and Municipalities of Spain, municipality of Spain, the capital of the province of Toledo and the ''de jure'' seat of the government and parliament of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castilla� ...

, and contain astronomical data starting on June 1, 1252, the date of the coronation of the King.

Production

Alfonso X assembled a team of scholars, known as the Toledo School of Translators, who among other translating tasks, were asked to produce new tables that updated the '' Tables of Toledo''. The new tables were based on earlier astronomical works and observations by Islamic astronomers, adding observations by astronomers Alfonso had gathered in Toledo, among them several Jewish scholars, like Yehuda ben Moshe and Isaac ibn Sid. He also brought Aben Raghel y Alquibicio and Aben Musio y Mohamat, from

Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...

, Joseph Aben Alí and Jacobo Abenvena, from Córdoba, and fifty more from

Gascony Gascony (; ) was a province of the southwestern Kingdom of France that succeeded the Duchy of Gascony (602–1453). From the 17th century until the French Revolution (1789–1799), it was part of the combined Province of Guyenne and Gascon ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. The instructions for the ''Alfonsine tables'' were originally written in

Castilian Spanish In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general. In Spanish, the term (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish langu ...

. The first printed edition of the ''Alfonsine tables'' appeared in 1483, and a second edition in 1492. Georg Purbach used the ''Alfonsine tables'' for his book, ''Theoricae novae planetarum'' (''New Theory of the Planets'').

Nicolaus Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a mathematical model, model of Celestial spheres#Renaissance, the universe that placed heliocentrism, the Sun rather than Earth at its cen ...

used the second edition in his work. One use of these and similar astronomical tables was to calculate ephemerides, which were in turn used by astrologers to cast horoscopes. Canons (explanatory texts) on the tables included those by John of Saxony and his teacher John of Lignères (fl 1320 to 1335).

Methodology

The methods of Claudius Ptolemy were used to compute the table, dividing the year into 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 16 seconds—very close to the currently accepted figure. Copernicus's observation that his system could explain the planetary motions with no more than 34 circles has been taken to imply that a large number of additional epicycles had been subsequently introduced into the Ptolemaic system in an attempt to make it conform with observation. quotes the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (article unspecified) of 1969 as implying 40-60 epicycles per planet; in the 1974 edition no similar quantified claim can be found (There is a famous (but probably apocryphal) quote attributed to Alfonso upon hearing an explanation of the extremely complicated mathematics required to demonstrate

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

geocentric model In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, often exemplified specifically by the Ptolemaic system) is a superseded scientific theories, superseded description of the Universe with Earth at the center. Under most geocentric m ...

of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

: "If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking on creation thus, I should have recommended something simpler.") However, modern computations using Ptolemy's unmodified theory have replicated the published Alfonsine tables.

Popularity

The ''Alfonsine tables'' were the most popular astronomical tables in Europe and updated versions were regularly produced for three hundred years.

, known as the father of modern astronomy, bought a copy while at the University of Cracow, and cared about it enough to have it professionally bound with pieces of wood and leather. Alexander Bogdanov maintained that these tables formed the basis for Copernicus's development of a heliocentric understanding in astronomy. In 1551, the '' Prutenic Tables'' (or ''Prussian Tables'') of Erasmus Reinhold's were published. These tables used the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system. Copernicus's publication, '' De revolutionibus'', was not easy to use and the Prutenic tables were intended to make the heliocentric model more usable by astrologers and astronomers. However, the Prutenic tables were not widely adopted outside German speaking countries and new ephemerides based on the Alfonsine tables continued to be published until the publication of

Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler (27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best know ...

's Rudolphine Tables in 1627.

References

External links

Astronomical Tables

The full text of the book "Tabula astronomice Alfonsi Regis" published in 1492
{{Authority control 13th-century books Astronomical tables Astrological texts Medieval European astronomy Alfonso X of Castile ca:Taules de Toledo

Production

Methodology

Popularity

See also

References

External links