George Saliba Knowledge of Arabic at Padua and its Refection in Vesalius’ Works Introduction By its geographic position, in the hinterland of Venice, and on the western side of the Mediterranean with the Islamic world on the other side of that sea, Padua came to prominence by becoming a conduit for the transmission of the fruits of Arabic sci- ence and philosophy to the European Renaissance. Already by mid-ffteenth century, at Padua University, which had been a couple of centuries old at the time, Johannes Müller, the distinguished German mathematician, better known as Regiomontanus (d. 1476) introduced his inaugural course on the astronomy of the ninth-century Arabic-writing astronomer, al-Farghānī (d. ca. 870) with a memorable oration that showered praise on the achievements of Arabic science. 1 In that oration, and while surveying the historic developments in mathematics, he would say, for example, in astounding admiration: How much value the Arabs placed on that art [meaning mathematics] is shown by the writings of the most worthy al-Bategni [i.e. Muḥammad b. Jābir al-Battānī (d. 929)], whom Plato of Tivoli translated into Latin. Likewise, a certain Gerard of Cremona translated Geber of Spain [meaning Jābir Ibn Afaḥ (d. 1150)], whom Albertus Magnus did not fear to call the corrector of Ptolemy in the Speculum astronomiae…. 2 By the end of that century Padua’s role as a conduit of Arabic scientifc ideas to Europe received a new boost by entering a new phase of its history when it was the 1 For the text of that oration, see Regiomontanus’ “Oratio Johannis de Montenegro, habita in Patavii,” in Regiomontanus Joannes (1972), Opera Collectanea, ed. Schmeidler Felix, O. Zeller, Osnabruk, p. 43-53, with portions of it translated into English and contextualized by Byrne James Steven (2006), “A Humanist History of Mathematics? Regiomontanus’s Padua Oration in Context,” Journal for the History of Ideas 67, n°1, p. 41-61. Much more can be said about the admiration of Arabic scientifc and philosophic thought in Padua during that period as evidenced by the various studies on the impact of Averroism at that time. See, among others, Akasoy Anna and Giglioni Guido (eds.) (2013), Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath: Arabic Philosophy in Early Modern Europe, Springer, Heidelberg/ NY/ London. 2 Byrne, “A Humanist,” p. 53.