This paper is part of the research for my doctoral thesis, «La miniatura astrológica en los reinos medievales hispánicos (siglos XI-XIII): iconografía y contexto cultural», Universidad de Murcia, 1994, under the direction of Dr. Joaquín Yarza Luaces (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona), to whom I am indebted for his generous help and encouragement. The first part of this thesis, on astrological illustration in the Carolingian tradition and its cultural context, is forthcoming as El tiempo y los astros: Arte, ciencia y religión en la Alta Edad Media. I should like to thank the Vatican Library for granting me permission to consult the astrological manuscripts in their collections in the summer of 1990. Most of this article was written in 1992 with the aid of a Frances A. Yates Research Fellowship from the Warburg Institute, and some of the results of my research were presented at the Director's Work in Progress Seminar. I am indebted especially to Dr. Charles Burnett, Dr. Kristen Lippincott, Professor Nicholas Mann, Miss Anne Marie Meyer and Miss Anita Pollard for their assistance. Lastly, I am grateful to the late Professor Hugo Buchthal, who kindly allowed me to share his room at the Warburg Institute during my stay there, and to Sir Ernst Gombrich, for a long and fascinating conversation on Warburg and Saxl in December 1990.

Frequently cited works:

D'Agostino = Alfonso X el Sabio, Astromagia (MS Reg. lat. 1283a), edición de A. D'Agostino, Naples 1992; Darby = G. O. S. Darby, «An Astrological Manuscript of Alfonso X», Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Harvard University, 1932; Diman and Winget = Alfonso el Sabio, Lapidario and Libro de las formas & ymagenes, edición de R. C. Diman and L. W. Winget, Madison, Wisconsin, 1980; Rico y Sinobas = Libros del saber de astronomía del rey D. Alfonso X de Castilla, edición de M. Rico y Sinobas, Madrid 1863-1867, 5 vols..

WARBURG, A., «Heidnisch-antike Weissagung in Wort und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten», Sitzgungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, XXVI (1920); repr. in his Gesammelte Schriften, II, Leipzig and Berlin, 1932, pp. 487-558, esp. 515-516, n. 3, and 528 n. 2. The discovery was probably made during his visit to Rome early in 1911 to discuss with Adolfo Venturi the arrangements for the forthcoming International Congress of History of Art, at which Aby Warburg was to read his famous lecture on the iconographie programme of the Schifanoia Palace (see GOMBRICH, E. H., Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography, London, 1970, pp. 192, 194). In the discussion of his discovery Warburg referred to the compilation as «Libro de los [sic] ymagenes», probably a confusion with the title of the other manuscript I deal with in this paper. It is clear from his own words that Warburg saw MS Reg. lat. 1283 for the first time in 1911; however, his interest in it undoubtedly began earlier, since in the Warburg Archive there is a letter to him dated 10 June 1910, from Bartolomeo Nogara, which gives a brief description of the manuscript. I am indebted to Miss Meyer for drawing my attention to the existence of this letter.

See SAXL, F. and MEIER, H., Catalogue of Astrological and Mythological Illuminated Manuscripts of the Latin Middle Ages. III. Manuscripts in English Libraries, edition of H. Bober, London, 1953, p. LX, n. 3. The project was interrupted by Warburg's illness, by Boll's death (see the obituary by MEISTER, K., «Franz Boll und die Erforschung der antiken Astrologie», Neue Jahrbücher, III (1925), pp. 321-330) and by Warburg's own death in 1929.

See GARCÍA SOLALINDE, A., «Alfonso X, astrólogo. Noticia del manuscrito vaticano, Reg. lat. núm. 1283», Revista de filología española, XIII (1926), pp. 350-356, where its relationship to the Picatrix is discussed. Solalinde claims to have come across the manuscript in 1916 and seems unaware of Warburg's article of 1920.

DARBY, George, «An Astrological Manuscript of Alfonso X», Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Harvard University, 1932.

PROCTER, E. S., «The Scientific Works of the Court of Alfonso X of Castile: The King and his Collaborators», Modern Language Review, XL (1945), pp. 12-29; idem, Alfonso X of Castile: Patron of Literature and Learning, Oxford, 1951 (reproducción in Westport, Conn., 1980); MENÉNDEZ PIDAL, G., «Alfonso X el Sabio», en Historia general de las literaturas hispánicas, Barcelona, 1949, pp. 427-46; idem, «Cómo trabajaron las escuelas alfonsíes», Nueva revista de filología hispánica, V (1951), pp. 363-80; ROMANO, D., «Le opere scientifiche di Alfonso X e l'intervento degli ebrei», in Oriente e occidente nel medioevo: filosofa e scienza, Rome, 1971, pp. 677-711 (reproduction in his De historia judía hispánica, Barcelona, 1991, pp. 147-181, and incorporated in his La ciencia hispanojudía, Madrid, 1992, pp. 139-149).

The Alfonsine texts in vernacular prose are published in KASTEN, L., NITTI, J. et al., Concordances and Texts of the Royal Scriptorium Manuscripts of Alfonso X el Sabio, Madison, Wisc., 1978 (microfiches).

The original Alfonsine manuscript is acephalous and the title was devised by its first editor, Rico y Sinobas; his choice of astronomía rather than astrología (terms which were used interchangeably in the Middle Ages) should be seen in the context of late 19th-century discussions on Spanish nationalism. Previously, the manuscript was entitled Libro del saber de astrología, which appears in a 16th-century copy (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, ms. 1197, fol. 2r.) and in the Italian (more precisely Florentine) translation made in Seville in 1341: Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana, ms. Vat. lat. 8174, incipit «Questo libro è di sapere di astrologia...», in KNECHT, P., I libri astronomici di Alfonso X in una versione florentina del Trecento, Saragossa, 1965. See now, however, a recent transcription in which the title chosen by Rico y Sinobas is recovered: Alfonso X el Sabio, Text and Concordance of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms. 8174, Libro di sapere di astronomia, edition J. A. Levi, Madison, Wisconsin, 1993; cf. also CÁRDENAS, A. J., «A New Title for the Alfonsine Omnibus on Astronomical Instruments», La Corónica, VII.2 (1980), pp. 172-178. The Rico y Sinobas edition is found wanting when judged by today's philological standards, and Cárdenas's longawaited critical edition, based on a collation of the manuscripts, is to the best of my knowledge still unpublished. In the meantime one must consult his edition of the original Alfonsine manuscript («A Study and Edition of the Royal Scriptorium Manuscript of El Libro del Saber de Astrología by Alfonso X el Sabio», Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1974, 4 vols.), in conjunction with the Italian translation; this is necessary due to the fragmentary state of the original (see CÁRDENAS, A. J., «Hacia una edición crítica del Libro del saber de astrología de Alfonso X el Sabio: estudio codicológico actual de la obra regia (mutilaciones, fechas y motivos)», en Homenaje a Pedro Sáinz Rodríguez, II, Madrid, 1986, pp. 111-120). On the first treatise of the compendium, the Libro de la ochava espera («Book of the Eighth Sphere»), see COMES, M., «Al-Sufi como fuente del libro de la Ochava espera de Alfonso X», en COMES, M.; MIELGO, H. y SAMSÓ, J. (eds.), «Ochava espera» y «Astrofísica». Textos y estudios sobre las fuentes árabes de la astronomía de Alfonso X el Sabio, Barcelona, 1990, pp. 11-113; the critical edition by RAMBOZ, C., «Alfonso X: Libro de la ochava espera. Édition critique», doctoral thesis, 2 vols., University of Paris XIII, 1983, takes insufficient account of modern scholarship.

This compendium was thought to have been translated in order to help with preparation of the Alfonsine Tables (Procter, Alfonso X, p. 10). Julio Samsó, however, has pointed out that: «la mayoría de los instrumentos descritos en los Libros del saber no son, estrictamente, instrumentos de observación sino instrumentos de cálculo, computadores analógicos destinados a resolver gráficamente problemas de astronomía esférica» («La astronomía de Alfonso X», Investigación y ciencia, LXXXIX (1984), pp. 91-103 [95]). Also, there has been much discussion among specialists regarding the question of the Alfonsine origin of the tables, the Latin version of which became the standard text for measuring the movements of the heavenly bodies in the late Middle Ages. Emmanuel Poulle, the editor of the editio princeps of Venice, 1483 (Les tables alphonsines avec les Canons de Jean de Saxe, Paris, 1984), has argued in several papers for a French origin of the tables: «Les tables alphonsines: sont-elles d'Alphonse X?», in De astronomia Alphonsi regis, Barcelona, 1987, pp. 51-69; «Les tables alphonsines et Alphonse X de Castille», Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Jan.-Mar. 1987, pp. 82-102; «The Alfonsine Tables and Alfonso X of Castile», Journal for the History of Astronomy, XIX (1988), pp. 97-113. But several historians dispute this view, favouring an Alfonsine origin: see SAMSÓ, J. and CASTELLÓ, F., «An Hypothesis on the Epoch of Ptolemy's Star Catalogue according to the Authors of the Alfonsine Tables», Journal for the History of Astronomy, XIX (1988), pp. 115-120; NORTH, J. D., «Just Whose were the Alfonsine Tables?», unpublished communication submitted to the Simposio Internacional de Historia de la Ciencia Árabe (Granada, 1992); SAMSÓ, J., «Las ciencias exactas y físico-naturales», in GARCÍA DE CORTÁZAR, J. A. (ed.), La época del Gótico en la cultura española (c. 1220-c. 1480), (Historia de España de Menéndez Pidal, XVI), Madrid, 1994, pp. 553-593, esp. 564-566; idem, «Las ciencias exactas en Castilla durante la Edad Media», in GARCÍA SIMÓN, A. (ed.), Historia de una cultura. II. La singularidad de Castilla, Valladolid, 1995, pp. 661-689, esp. 674-676. See also the recent assessment of Alfonso's patronage of astronomical works by GINGERICH, O., «Alfonso the Tenth as a Patron of Astronomy», in MÁRQUEZ VILLANUEVA, F. and VEGA, C. (eds.), Alfonso X of Castile the Learned King, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 1990, pp. 30-44.

For complete transcriptions see D'Agostino; Darby and Kasten, Nitti et al., Concordances and Texts..., under the microfiche entry «Picatrix».