. .SY '/A'. Vr/;.s. 



109 



with no little ('chit in the East by. several Arab botanists, such as Ebn-Taitor, 

 a native of Malaga, who travelled into Asia to study plants previously to 

 becoming minister of the Caliph at Cairo ; and Alxlallatif, author of a 

 very accurate description of the plants and animals of Egypt, who, in the 

 dissection of a mummy, corrected several important errors which Galen 

 had made in matters of osteology. This knowledge of human anatomy is all 

 the more remarkable because the law of Mahomet absolutely forbids dissection 

 of dead bodies. Thus a great part of such science as there then was in the 



Fig. 81. God creating the World by Compass. Miniature frtm Brimetto Latini's " Tresor." 

 Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century. In the Arsenal Library, Paris. 



world came directly from the Arabs, and especially from the caliphate of 

 Cordova. It was there that Gerbert, who became, in turn, Archbishop of 

 Rheims, of Ravenna, and afterwards Pope, under the name of Sylvester II. 

 (999), repaired to increase his already large store of learning, and he may 

 claim the honour of having imported into Italy the first elements of the 

 natural sciences. Otho of Cremona sets forth the facts relating to medicinal 

 plants with which he is acquainted in a learned poem of fifteen hundred 

 lines ; and John of Milan summarised, also in verse, all the medical botany 



