36 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



the Queen of Spain, and who was a contemporary 

 of Tarasia of Leon, may well have translated the 

 Sirr-el-asrar into Latin. That part of the book 

 thus made public in the West appeared under 

 the following title : ' De conservatione corporis 

 humani, ad Alexandrum.' It is found in several 

 manuscripts of the Laurentian Library in Florence. 1 

 Soon afterwards, and probably in the opening 

 years of the thirteenth century, the whole book 

 was published in a Latin version by the same 

 Philippus Clericus, with whom we have already 

 become acquainted. We may recall the fact that 

 he belonged to the diocese of Tripoli, as Ibn 

 Butrus also did, and as Johannes Hispanus was 

 also a monk of Syria, these three scholars are seen 

 to be joined by a link of locality highly increasing 

 the probability that they actually co-operated in 

 the publication of this hitherto unknown text. 

 In his preface, Philip speaks of the Arabic manu- 

 script as a precious pearl, discovered while he 

 was still in Syria. This leads us to think that 

 his work in translating it was done after he had 

 left the East, and possibly in the course of his 

 voyage westward. We know that the Hebrew 

 version of Aristotle's Meteora was produced in 

 similar circumstances. Samuel ben Juda ben 

 Tibbun says he completed that translation in the 

 year 1210, while the ship that bore him from 

 Alexandria to Spain was passing between the 

 isles of Lampadusa and Pantellaria. 2 However 

 this may be, Philip of Tripoli dedicated his version 

 of the Sirr-el-asrar, which he called the Secreta 



1 Viz., P. xiii. sin. cod. 6 ; P. xxx. cod. 29 ; and P. Ixxxix. sup. 

 cod. 76. There is also one at Paris, Fonds de Sorbonne, 955. 



2 See the MS, of the Laurentian Library, p. Ixxxviii. cod. 24. 



