The first instance of contacts between the Islamic world and Renaissance Europe in the field of scientific instruments concerns Antonio de Sangallo the Younger (1484-1546), one of the most famous architects of Renaissance Italy. Among his papers, now still kept at the Uffizi in Florence,[345] there is one sheet that contains, on one face of it, a detailed drawing of an astrolabe that was made in Baghdad around the year 850, and on the back a drawing of the rete of the same astrolabe.[346] The reason we know such details about the drawing of this astrolabe is due to the meticulousness of de Sangallo, who not only copied the astrolabe on paper, face and back and rete, but, with great care, he also copied the name of the original maker of the astrolabe that was etched along the edge of the upper right hand quadrant on the back of the astrolabe. Unlike most other art objects that were produced in the Islamic domain, and did not usually carry the name of the artist, astrolabes were usually inscribed on the back with the name of the maker. So this astrolabe was not an exception.
The name of the original Baghdad maker was Khafīf. He apparently apprenticed with a more famous astrolabist who lived in Baghdad around the year 850, by the name of 'Alī b. 'Īsā.[347] Because of that relationship, Khafīf signed his name on the back of the astrolabe as "ṣana'ahu Khafīf ghulām 'Alī b. 'Īsā", which means: "It was made by Khafīf the apprentice of 'Alī b. 'Īsā." De Sangallo dutifully copied this signature, which has no astronomical significance whatsoever. The question that this sole paper of the Uffizi poses is: Why was someone like de Sangallo interested, in the first place, in an astrolabe that was made some 800 years earlier? This, when we know that de Sangallo was in his own right a famous architect who was entrusted with the building of St. Peter's cathedral in Rome, a monument that continues to stand witness to his skill and mastery. My suspicion is that the scientifically oriented men of the Renaissance, especially during the sixteenth century, must have thought very highly of all scientific things coming to them from the Islamic world, even instruments that were made centuries earlier.
To complicate the puzzle somehow, and to point to directions already signaled in the case of the contacts with Copernicus, in astronomy, and with Michael Servetus and Realdo Colombo in medicine, here too, there is no evidence that de Sangallo knew any Arabic. My suspicion is that the drawing, which duplicates all the Arabic inscriptions from that astrolabe, down to the signature of the maker, only attests to his ability as a draftsman. And that in itself does not constitute enough evidence to conclude that he knew any Arabic, unless someone can demonstrate that de Sangallo ever learned Arabic, which would be very curious indeed.
The second instance concerns the Renaissance reception of this particular area of scientific instrument, and the extent to which this field was particularly interesting to Renaissance men.[348] The interest itself can be easily demonstrated by other contacts between the world of Islam and such famous astrolabe makers like the Arsenius family of astrolabists, who worked in northern Europe, mainly in the Flemish area, sometime toward the end of the sixteenth century. To illustrate the contact between this family of astrolabists and the Islamic world, consider the extant astrolabe (figure 6.8) that was originally made in Muslim Spain, and whose mater, back and plates were inscribed in Arabic by Muḥammad Ibn Fattūḥ al-Khamā'irī in 619 A.H. = 1222 A.D. As is obvious from the picture, a member of the Arsenius family fitted the rete of this astrolabe with Latin inscriptions, and produced a plate that would work for the northern European clime.[349] The existence of this astrolabe, in this form, could only mean that some member of that family was in fact working with Arabic astrolabes, and must have been somehow competent in Arabic. Or say that at least he must have been bilingual enough in order to use the new rete properly with the mater that was made by Khamā'irī. The reason is that the rete was inscribed with the Latin names of the star, while the rim, against which the altitudes of those stars had to be read, still carried the Arabic alphabetical numerals that were originally inscribed by Khamā'irī. Therefore, we can only conclude that either Arsenius himself, the maker of the new rete and plate, or the user of the resulting hybrid astrolabe must have been able to read some Arabic at least, and that must illustrate some interest in the Islamic scientific instruments toward the end of the sixteenth century at such northern climes as the Netherlands.
Other such hybrid astrolabes are probably still waiting in private collections to be discovered. King's study of Instruments of Mass Calculations[350] has many examples of such influences and thus it is highly likely that such hybrids exist.
Figure 6.8
A hybrid astrolabe that was once kept at the Time Museum. The mater was made by al-Khamā'irī in 1222, as clearly signed in the picture on the right. The rete, which carries the standard design of the Arsenius family, was made by one of the members of that family toward the end of the sixteenth century.
The same design of the retes that were commonly produced by the members of the Arsenius family (figure 6.9, right) may also demonstrate another connection between astrolabes that were made in the Islamic world and those that were made in Renaissance Europe and thereafter. In his most recent publication, just cited, David King of Frankfurt raised the possibility that those designs may not at all represent tulips, as they are usually taken to do, but should rather be seen as skeletal representations of the Arabic calligraphic phrase bism'Allāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm (In the name of Allāh, the Compassionate and the Merciful), which is the opening phrase of most chapters of the Qur'an.[351] As is obvious from figure 6.9 (left), the inscription of the phrase is beautifully interwoven among the leafy star pointers of the rete. The Arabic calligraphic design of this particular rete, on the left, comes from a slightly later astrolabe, which was made in Persia by Muḥammad Zamān in 1651-52. And the astrolabe itself is still preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. But despite the later date of the astrolabe, the rete design may have descended from an earlier astrolabe rete that utilized the same mirror image calligraphy of the phrase, or from a similar design on other art objects that were produced in the Islamic world. The existence of calligraphic designs drawn in the shapes of animals or other objects are ubiquitously found among the artistic treasures of the Islamic world and may have influenced the production of such retes.[352]
Figure 6.9
Right: A standard rete produced by a member of the Arsenius family. This rete is thought to represent the form of a tulip. Left: A rete produced by Muḥammad Zamān of Persia in 1651-52, which has the same design but for the Qur'anic verse bism'Allāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm.
346
I have already devoted an article to this astrolabe. See G. Saliba, "A Sixteenth-Century Drawing of an Astrolabe Made by Khafīf Ghulām 'Alī b. 'Īsā (c. 850 A.D.)",
347
The relationship between those two astrolabists was already known to al-Nadīm,
348
For examples of widespread influence of Islamic astrolabes on their European counterparts, see King,
349
This astrolabe was once at the Time Museum, in Rockford Illinois, and has since been moved to a private collection. A picture of it was published in the catalogue of the Time Museum. See A. J. Turner,
350
David King,
352
For samples of such designs see Yousif Muḥammad Ghulām,