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Almagest, astronomical manual written about AD 150 by Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria). It served as the basic guide for Islamic and European astronomers until about the beginning of the 17th century. Its original name was Mathematike Syntaxis (“The Mathematical Arrangement”); Almagest arose as an Arabic corruption of the Greek word for greatest (megiste). It was translated into Arabic about 827 and then from Arabic to Latin in the last half of the 12th century. Subsequently, the Greek text circulated widely in Europe, although the Latin translations from Arabic continued to be more influential.
The present copy of Ptolemy's Almagest is the earliest dated scholastic manuscript made in Paris. It contains the Latin translation of Gerard of Cremona. Its colophon records that it was copied from an exemplar at St-Victor Abbey and that it was finished in December 1213.
The picture shows folio 4r of the manuscript.
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