SCOT AT TOLEDO 53 



have been completed and published towards the end 

 of the same year, when Scot had no doubt been 

 already some time settled in Toledo. 



The second form in which Michael Scot produced 

 his work upon the Natural History of Aristotle was 

 that of a version called the Abbreviatio Avicennae. 

 The full title as it appears in the printed copy l is : 

 * Avicenna de Animalibus per Magistrum Michaelem 

 Scotum de Arabico in Latinum translatus.' Like 

 the De Animalibus ad Caesar em it consists of 

 nineteen books, thus comprehending the three 

 Aristotelic treatises in one work. 



The name of Ibn Sina or Avicenna, the author 

 of the Arabic original, is significant, as it enables 

 us to connect in a remarkable way the present 

 labours of Scot's pen with those which had in a 

 past age proceeded from the school of translators at 

 Toledo, and to place the Abbreviatio in its true 

 relation with the system of versions which had been 

 published there nearly a century before. We have 

 already remarked that Don Rayrnon directed the 

 attention of his translators to Avicenna as the best 

 representative, both of Aristotle himself and of the 

 Arabian wisdom which had gathered about his 

 writings. A manuscript of great interest preserved 

 in the library of the Vatican 2 shows what the 

 labours of Gundisalvus, Avendeath, and their co- 

 adjutors had been, and how far they had proceeded 

 in the task of making this author accessible to 

 Latin students. From it we learn that the Logic, 

 the Physics, the De Ccelo et Mundo, the Meta- 



1 Fifteenth Century s. 1. et a. in fol. pp. 54. There are also Venice 

 editions of 1493 and 1509. 



2 Fondo Vaticano 4428 in fol. perg. saec. xiii. See a complete 

 inventory of this MS. in Appendix n. 



