[435] Richer tells of the visit to Aurillac by Borel, a Spanish nobleman, just as Gerbert was entering into young manhood. He relates how affectionately the abbot received him, asking if there were men in Spain well versed in the arts. Upon Borel's reply in the affirmative, the abbot asked that one of his young men might accompany him upon his return, that he might carry on his studies there.
[436] Vicus Ausona. Hatto also appears as Atton and Hatton.
[437] This is all that we know of his sojourn in Spain, and this comes from his pupil Richer. The stories told by Adhemar of Chabanois, an apparently ignorant and certainly untrustworthy contemporary, of his going to Cordova, are unsupported. (See e.g. Picavet, p. 34.) Nevertheless this testimony is still accepted: K. von Raumer, for example (Geschichte der Pädagogik, 6th ed., 1890, Vol. I, p. 6), says "Mathematik studierte man im Mittelalter bei den Arabern in Spanien. Zu ihnen gieng Gerbert, nachmaliger Pabst Sylvester II."
[438] Thus in a letter to Aldaberon he says: "Quos post repperimus speretis, id est VIII volumina Boeti de astrologia, praeclarissima quoque figurarum geometriæ, aliaque non minus admiranda" (Epist. 8). Also in a letter to Rainard (Epist. 130), he says: "Ex tuis sumptibus fac ut michi scribantur M. Manlius (Manilius in one MS.) de astrologia."
[439] Picavet, loc. cit., p. 31.
[440] Picavet, loc. cit., p. 36.
[441] Havet, loc. cit., p. vii.
[442] Picavet, loc. cit., p. 37.
[443] "Con sinistre arti conseguri la dignita del Pontificato.... Lasciato poi l' abito, e 'l monasterio, e datosi tutto in potere del diavolo." [Quoted in Bombelli, L'antica numerazione Italica, Rome, 1876, p. 41 n.]
[444] He writes from Rheims in 984 to one Lupitus, in Barcelona, saying: "Itaque librum de astrologia translatum a te michi petenti dirige," presumably referring to some Arabic treatise. [Epist. no. 24 of the Havet collection, p. 19.]