Plato Tiburtinus
12th-century Italian astronomer and mathematician
Plato Tiburtinus (Latin: Plato Tiburtinus, "Plato of Tivoli"; fl. 12th century) was a 12th-century Italian mathematician, astronomer and translator who lived in Barcelona from 1116 to 1138. He is best known for translating Hebrew and Arabic documents into Latin, and was apparently the first to translate information on the astrolabe (an astronomical instrument) from Arabic.
Plato of Tivoli translated the Arab astrologer Albohali's "Book of Birth" into Latin in 1136. He translated Claudius Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos from Arabic to Latin in 1138, the astronomical works of al-Battani, Theodosius' Spherics and the Liber Embadorum by Abraham bar Chiia.
He has worked together with the Jewish mathematician Savasorda (Abraham Bar Ḥiyya Ha-Nasi). His manuscripts were widely circulated and were among others used by Albertus Magnus and Fibonacci.
Works
To him are attributed four works in science-mathematics:
The Liber Embadorum (“Book of Areas,” or “Practical Geometry”), it was transferred (after a date astronomical specified in the text ) in 1145 from the Hebrew. The book had an influence on the Geometry of Fibonacci book and contains one of the first comprehensive treatments of quadratic equations in the Occident.
The Spherics by Theodosius of Bithynia,
Al-Battān, i's al-Zij (“Astronomical Treatise”)
The De usu astrolabii of Abu’l-Qāsim Maslama (Ibn al-Sạffār), The manuscript contains information about the first astrolabe in the West.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q726787. VIAF identifies the subject as 219317722. The Library of Congress control number is no2004074424. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1116, 1138, 1136 and 1145.
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This entry incorporates text from “Plato Tiburtinus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.