[490] III, 29.
[491] II, 31-50.
[492] II, 32.
[493] A complete edition of Ptolemy’s works has been in process of publication since 1898 in the Teubner library by J. L. Heiberg and Franz Boll. They are also the authors of the most important recent researches concerning Ptolemy. See Heiberg’s discussion of the MSS in the volumes of the above edition which have thus far appeared; his articles on the Latin translations of Ptolemy in Hermes XLV (1910) 57ff, and XLVI (1911) 206ff; but especially Boll, Studien über Claudius Ptolemäus. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie und Astrologie, 1894, in Jahrb. f. Philol. u. Pädagogik, Neue Folge, Suppl. Bd. 21. A recent summary of investigation and bibliography concerning Ptolemy is W. Schmid, Die Nachklassische Periode der Griechischen Litteratur, 1913, pp. 717-24, in the fifth edition of Christ, Gesch. d. Griech. Litt.
[494] Some strictures upon Ptolemy as a geographer are made by Sir W. M. Ramsay, The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, 1890, pp. 69-73.
[495] Schmid would appear to be mistaken in saying that the Geography was already known in Latin and Arabic translation in the time of Frederick II (p. 718, “Seine in erster Linie die Astronomie, dann auch die Geographie und Harmonik betreffenden Schriften haben sich nicht bloss im Originaltext erhalten; sie wurden auch frühzeitig von den Arabern übersetzt und sind dann, ähnlich wie die Werke des Aristoteles, schon zur Zeit des Kaisers Friedrich II, noch ehe man sie im Urtext kennen lernte, durch lateinische, nach dem Arabischen gemachte Übersetzungen ins Abendland gelangt”), for in his own bibliography (p. 723) we read, “Geographie ... Frühste latein. Übersetzung des Jacobus Angelus gedruckt Bologna, 1462.” Apparently Schmid did not know the date of Angelus’ translation.
However, Duhem, III (1915) 417, also speaks as if the Geography were known in the thirteenth century: “les considérations empruntées à la Géographie de Ptolémée fournissent à Robert de Lincoln une objection contre le mouvement de précession des équinoxes tel qu’il est définé dans l’Almageste.” See also C. A. Nallino, Al-Huwarizmi e il suo rifacimento della geografia di Tolomeo, 1894, cited by Suter (1914) viii-ix, for a geography in Arabic preserved at Strasburg which is based on Ptolemy’s Geography.
[496] In this Latin translation it is often entitled Cosmographia. Some MSS are: CLM 14583, 15th century, fols. 81-215, Cosmographia Ptolomei a Jacobo Angelo translata. Also BN 4801, 4802, 4803, 4804, 4838. Arsenal 981, in an Italian hand, is presumably incorrectly dated as of the 14th century.
This Jacobus Angelus was chancellor of the faculty of Montpellier in 1433 and is censured by Gerson in a letter for his superstitious observance of days.
[497] The several editions printed before 1500 seem to have consisted simply of this Latin translation, such as that of Bologna, 1462, and Vincentiae, 1475, and the Greek text to have been first published in 1507. See Justin Winsor, A Bibliography of Ptolemy’s Geography, 1884, in Library of Harvard University, Bibliographical Contributions, No. 18:—a bibliography which deals only with printed editions and not with the MSS. According to Schmid, however, the editio princeps of the Greek text was that of Basel, 1533. C. Müller’s modern edition (Didot, 1883 and 1901) gives an unsatisfactory bare list of 38 MSS. See also G. M. Raidel, Commentatio critico-literaria de Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia eiusque codicibus, 1737.