Plato Tiburtinus

Who is Plato Tiburtinus?

Plato Tiburtinus was a 12th-century Italian mathematician, astronomer and translator who lived in Barcelona from 1116 to 1138. He is best known for translating Hebrew and Arabic documents into Latin, and was apparently the first to translate information on the astrolabe from Arabic.

Plato of Tivoli translated the Arab astrologer Albohali's "Book of Birth" into Latin in 1136. He translated Claudius Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos from Arabic to Latin in 1138, the astronomical works of al-Battani, Theodosius' Spherics and the Liber Embadorum by Abraham bar Chiia. He has worked with the mathematician jew Savasorda together. His manuscripts were widely circulated and were among others used by Albertus Magnus and Fibonacci.