Titolo della tesi: Optics and Theory of Vision in the Kitāb nūr al-ʿuyūn wa-ǧāmiʿ al-funūn: Critical Edition, Translation and Comment of the Second maqāla
Science changes constantly. Most of the time, progress involves minor issues or specific elements of inquiry. Much more rarely, instead, the foundational paradigms evolve, entailing processes of conceptual re-elaboration which re-define the disciplines anew. Let us consider optics. The re-definition of the discipline as the physics of light is quite recent. Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, its status was completely different. Optics was in fact conceived as the science of vision, the eye being its primary element of investigation, rather than light. Such a paradigmatic link warranted a special connection between optics and medicine, namely with ophthalmology. The medieval Arabic production in this field is a case in point inasmuch as the lion’s share of its texts usually presents a section devoted to optics. Within this tradition, deeply influenced by the ancient Greek legacy, the Kitāb nūr al-ʿuyūn wa-ǧāmiʿ al-funūn stands out. Contrary to a standard, unoriginal treatment of the ophthalmological issues, the contents, sources, and general setup of its second maqāla, entirely devoted to optical matters, is as peculiar as to make this work a unicum in the field of medieval Arabic ophthalmology. Centered on the examination of this section, this study aims to produce a critical edition thereof, integrated with an annotated translation. Before that, a contextualization of the Kitāb nūr al-ʿuyūn wa-ǧāmiʿ al-funūn is provided in Chapter One. The first paragraph introduces the work regarding its main contents, setup, and approach. A brief overview concerning the state of the art on the Kitāb nūr al-ʿuyūn wa-ǧāmiʿ al-funūn is presented afterwards. The second paragraph focuses on the second maqāla, which is examined upon the background of the Arabic medieval literary production on ophthalmology. By means of retracing models and patterns regarding the treatment of optical matters within the most famous works in the field, the uniqueness of the maqāla is established. The third paragraph deals with diagrams, pivotal elements of Euclidean geometrical optics. In particular, diagrams are examined with regard to their paleographical-codicological peculiarities, in order to shed some light upon issues relating to the material culture, as well as to investigate how diagrams interact with the leaf and the mathematical content they refer to. The fourth paragraph is reserved to the author of the Kitāb nūr al-ʿuyūn wa-ǧāmiʿ al-funūn, Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā b. Abī al-Raǧāʾ. This section is structured as an attempt at sketching a biographical profile of the author of the treatise. Chapter Two focuses on the manuscript witnesses of the Kitāb nūr al-ʿuyūn wa-ǧāmiʿ al-funūn, which are thoroughly analyzed with regard to their codicological and paleographical characteristics. In Chapter Three, the critical edition and annotated translation of the second maqāla are provided. Three Appendices conclude the study. Appendix I is devoted to diagrams; synoptical tables comparing the lectiones of the lettering and the drawings of manuscripts are presented. Appendix II focuses on bāb 14 of the ninth maqāla, “On strabismus and its cure”; the critical edition of the Arabic text and an annotated translation are provided. Appendix III is a specialized glossary of technical terms relating to the field of optics. Finally, a bibliography is supplied.