THE ASTRONOMICAL WRITINGS OF SCOT 99 



obtained with the astrolabe. Such a line of pro- 

 gress could not but lead to the time when the 

 Ptolemaic theory no longer lent itself by any 

 modification to the full explanation of ascertained 

 facts. Then and then only arose the new astronomy 

 of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which is 

 thus seen to be vitally connected, even in its highest 

 reach and most splendid developments with the 

 now forgotten theories of the Moorish schools. 



Considering then the epoch at which he lived, 

 and the incomplete material which existed in his 

 days for a true science of the heavens, Michael Scot 

 did all that could be reasonably expected of him. 

 He sat at the feet of those who were then the best 

 authorities on this subject. He used his oppor- 

 tunities at Toledo to make the last and most subtle 

 theories of the Moors intelligible to those less 

 fortunate scholars whose attention these must 

 otherwise have escaped. 



His services to astronomy appeared in the Latin 

 version which he made from a treatise on the Sphere 

 lately composed by Alpetrongi. This author's 

 name is said to have been, in its Arabic form, Nur- 

 ed-din el Patrugi. Munk, in his Melanges, tells us 

 that the latter designation was derived from a 

 village called Petroches lying a little to the north 

 of Cordova.^ The Latins corrupted the name in 

 different ways, so that among them it became 

 Avenalpetrandi, Alpetrongi, or Alpetragius. The 

 astronomer who bore it flourished about the year 

 1190, and is said to have been a renegade, and a 



1 This village gave name to another Moorish writer, Abu Gafar 

 Ahmed ben Abd- el-Rahman ben Mohammed, also surnamed el Bitraugi. 

 He died in 1147 and his fame survives as that of the author of an 

 encyclopedia of science. 



