CORDOBA, Alfonso de.

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Tabule astronomice Elisabeth regine. First Cordoba edition of the Alfonsine tables, compiling data to calculate the positions of celestial bodies. Composed in Spanish at King Alfonso X's court in the 13th century, they were based on Arabic astronomy and Greek classical and Hindu knowledge. This Cordoba adaptation was a key source cited by Copernicus in the Commentariolus, his earliest planetary theory.The Alfonsine tables were the first set of astronomical tables prepared in Europe, redacted under the direction of Rabbi Jehuda ben Moses Cohen and the royal physician Isaac ben Sid between 1263 and 1272. Their contents derive directly from the structure of medieval Arabic zijes, astronomical books tabulating parameters that can be used to calculate the position of the sun, moon, stars, and planets. Zijes were introduced in Europe through Muslim Spain by Arabic scholars, the Alfonsine tables being one of the earliest productions inspired by them. Among the most important sources for the tables are works of the medieval astronomers al-Battani, al-Khawarizmi, and al-Zarqali. The tables were used and adapted all over Europe in the following century, and the adaptations of Johannes de Saxonia in Paris in 1327 were selected by Radtolt for the first printed edition of the Alfonsine Tables in Venice in 1483.Alonso de Cordoba, born in Sevilla in about 1450, served as astronomer to the King of Portugal and published various books with astronomical tables. He adapted the Alfonsine Tables

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