John of Palermo () was a translator of mathematical works from

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

who lived in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

, Sicily. He worked in the court of

Emperor Frederick II Frederick II (, , , ; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225. He was the son of Emperor Henry VI of the Ho ...

. John had been introduced into the court of Frederick II through the mathematician Domenico Ispano. John is mentioned by Leonardo Fibonacci in his ''Liber quadratorum'' (1225) and several problems from Arab texts by

Omar Khayyam Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīshābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) (Persian language, Persian: غیاث الدین ابوالفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشابورﻯ), commonly known as Omar ...

were posed to Fibonacci. Some court documents mention a Johannes de Panormo who is thought to be the same person. John translated an Arab manuscript, possibly by

Ibn al-Haytham Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (Latinization of names, Latinized as Alhazen; ; full name ; ) was a medieval Mathematics in medieval Islam, mathematician, Astronomy in the medieval Islamic world, astronomer, and Physics in the medieval Islamic world, p ...

, on the parabola into Latin as the ''De duabus lineis semper approximantibus sibi invicem et nunquam concurrentibus''. John as noted as a "notarius" and there are indications that Frederick was to send him to Tunis in 1240.

References

13th-century writers from the Holy Roman Empire 13th-century Italian mathematicians Arabic–Latin translators Court_of_Frederick_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor {{Math-bio-stub