This is based on the edition and commentary of this material by Anne Tihon and myself: Georges Gémiste Pléthon: Manuel d'astronomie, by TihonAnneMercierRaymond (Corpus des Astronomes Byzantinsix, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1998).
2.
See Anne Tihon's article in this issue, “The astronomy of George Gemistus Plethon”.
3.
This convenient ‘x-ray’ of mean motions goes back to Roger Billard's study of Indian Canons, L'Astronomie Indienne (Paris, 1971).
4.
MercierRaymond, “The Greek ‘Persian Syntaxis’ and the Zīj-i Ikhān”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xxxiv (1984), 35–60.
5.
Munich Heb. 343, ff. 182v–200v; Munich Heb 386, ff. 15v seq.; New York, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, MS 2597, ff. 45a seq. I am indebted to Professor B. R. Goldstein for the latter two references. The attribution of the tables to Bonfils is missing from the first of these three.
6.
There are two quite distinct but close Latin versions of the text, respectively from 1406, by an Italian Zacharias Lucae e Camerino (Florence conventi soppr. J.IV.20; BjörnboAxel, “Die mathematischen S. Marcohandschriften in Florenz”, Part 3, Bibliotheca mathematica, xii (1912), 97–132, p. 113), and anonymously c. 1420 (MS Padua Escorial e.III.23). In the latter the literal Latin version is accompanied by another in more fluent Latin. There is also a Greek version of the tables, with instructions given in an original Greek text, including calculations for 1435, by Michael Chrysococces. It is interesting that the Latin versions were made before the Greek, and that the texts are close translations.
7.
Venice Bibl. Marciana Latin Cl.VIII Cod 31; the lunar tables are in ff. 63r–64r.
8.
MS Paris BN Heb 1042, ff. 34r–104v.
9.
MSS Paris BN Heb 1084, 1085; Oxford Bodley Heb.d.5.
