Ms. nº 10106. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid
Castilian Translation / Miscellaneous

As Millás Vallicrosa has shown1, this miscellaneous codex consists of two texts in Castilian on different themes, with independent numeration, written, in a different hand, at the beginning of the 15th century [first translated in the 13th century, acc. to Carabaza Bravo & García Sánchez 2001, ‘Estado actual y perspectivas de los estudios sobre agronomia andalusi’. In: Tawfik et al. (eds.). El Saber en al-Andalus: Textos y Estudios 3. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla. p. 107]. The first of these, occupying 16 folios, concerns arithmetic, and the second comprises translations of two Andalusian agricultural works, those of Ibn Wāfid (fols. 1r-16r) and Ibn Baṣṣāl (fols. 17r to 66r).2

Even though both texts are fragmentary and anonymous, Millás was able to identify the authors through various bibliographic references and comparative studies, and despite other opinions that emerged later about the first of these identifications3, we believe that they do not invalidate the conclusion of the distinguished professor. This, incidentally, confirms the Toledan authorship [i.e.  Ibn Wāfid] of other codices which concur with the Castilian version but which were formerly attributed to Al-Nahrāwī or to Ibn Ḥajjāj.

The Castilian translation of Ibn Baṣṣāl’s treatise comprises only the first twelve chapters of his work but serves to fill several lacunae that exist in the Arabic manuscripts.

(translated from Carabaza Bravo, J. M. & García Sánchez, E. (1998). ‘Códices Misceláneos de Agronomía Andalusí’. Al Qantara 19, pp. 407-08).


Notes


1 Cf. among other works of this author, Millás Vallicrosa, J. M., 1943. ‘La traducción castellana del Tratado de Agricultura de Ibn Wāfid’, Al-Andalus 8, p. 282.
2 Ibid, pp. 281-332; and Millás Vallicrosa, J. M., 1948. ‘La traducción castellana del ‘Tratado de Agricultura’ de Ibn Baṣṣāl’. Al-Andalus 13, pp. 347-430.
3 As, for example, that of García Gómez who was torn between attributing it to Ibn Ḥajjāj or to Abū ’l-Khayr. García Gómez, E., 1984. ‘Traducciones alfonsíes de agricultura árabe’, Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia CLXXXI, n. III, pp. 394-96.