SCOT AT TOLEDO 49 



Wtistenfeld 1 contend. No one, however, has hither- 

 to ventured any suggestion throwing light on the 

 personality of the writer. The colophon to the 

 copy of Scot's version in the Bibliotheca Angelica of 

 Rome contains the word Alphagiri, which would 

 seem to stand for the proper name Al Faquir. 

 But in all probability, as we shall presently show, 

 this may be merely the name of the Spanish Jew 

 who aided Michael Scot in the work of translation. 



The expression 'secundum extractionem Michaelis 

 Scoti/ which is used in the same colophon, would 

 seem to indicate that this version, voluminous as it 

 is, was no more than a compend of the original. 

 The title of the manuscript too : * Incipit flos primi 

 libri Aristotelis de Animalibus' agrees curiously with 

 this, and with the word Abbreviatio (Avicennae) , 

 used to describe Scot's second version of the De 

 Aniinalibus of which we are presently to speak. Are 

 we then to suppose that in each case the translator 

 exercised his faculty of selection, and that the form 

 of these compends was due, not to Avicenna, nor to 

 the unknown author of the text called in Scot's 

 version the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, but to 

 Scot himself? The expressions just cited would 

 seem to open the way for such a conclusion. 



The contents of the De Animalibus ad Caesarem 

 may be inferred from the Prologue which is as 

 follows : ' In Nomine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi 

 Omnipotentis Misericordis et Pii, translatio trac- 

 tatus primi libri quern composuit Aristoteles in 

 cognitione naturalium animalium, agrestium et 

 marinorum, et in illo est conjunctionis animalium 

 modus et modus generationis illorum cum coitu, 



1 Die Ucbersets. Arabischer Werke, Gottingen, 1877, p. 99. 

 D 



