It is a widely accepted fact that the translation of Arabic scientific (and philosophical) texts contributed significantly to both a renewed interest and further development of scientific (and philosophical) thinking in the West. But what motivated the translators of these Arabic works to make these translations? José Martínez Gázquez offers a very substantial survey of what these translators themselves said about their motives for translating a given Arabic text. He always provides the original quotation in Latin while adding a brief explanation and/or comment.

In the first chapter, entitled “The translations from Arabic to Latin”, which covers almost three-quarters of the book, attention is paid to no fewer than 38 names (mainly of translators, but also of political or ecclesiastical leaders) and, in addition, to one anonymous treatise. The chapter covers a period that starts in the ninth century and ends in the fifteenth. However, it immediately strikes us that the first mentioned author, i.e. Alvarus Paulus Cordubensis, is a Christian apologetic ecclesiastic, not a translator, whereas the last dated work, i.e. the “Gloss of St. Jeronimus on Almandel and Amadel” presents itself as a translation into Latin from Greek, not from Arabic. Of course, the former's attitude is indicative of a growing interest among Latins in the scientific culture of the Arabs and the “Gloss” is related to magical texts that are (indeed) based on Arabic sources. Therefore, they occupy a somewhat marginal position, of which the author is certainly not unaware, but which he could have stressed and explored a little more. This same remark can also be made with regard to Bonaventura of Siena's Latin translation of the Liber scalae Mohameti, since it is based on an earlier Castilian translation (and, moreover, it is a religious, not a scientific, text), and to Abraham Hebreo's translation of Ibn al-Haytham's work on the physical structure of the world into Castilian, not into Latin. John of Capua clearly occupies a special position. Martínez Gázquez not only specifies that the latter's translation of the (literary) work Kal ī la wa-Dimna is based on the Hebrew version, but also that the story has an Indian origin and a Persian precedent, and hence encompasses the wisdom of the “sapientes nationum mundi”, not simply of the Arabs – unfortunately, Martínez Gázquez pays no attention whatsoever to this last most significant affirmation. In addition, the relevance of some authors (i.e. Walcher, Prior of Greater Malvern; William of Conches; Raymond of Marseilles; Gerard of Wales; Georgius Zothors Zaparus Fendulus; Leonardo Fibonacci) is limited to their use or rejection of the “new Arabic science”. In my view, it would have been preferable if they had been put together in a single section. One wonders, moreover, whether the names of political and religious leaders (i.e. Gerber of Aurillac; Peter the Venerable; Daniel of Morley; Manfred, King of Sicily; Humbert of Romans; Ramon Llull; Peter the Ceremonius, King of Aragon), who were themselves not translators, but requested or supported translations from Arabic works, had also not been better treated in a specific section. Finally, even if mention is made on several occasions that the Latins did consider the Arabic works that they translated as a means to (re)discover or better understand (lost) Greek works, no systematic discussion is offered with regard to this significant issue. This is all the more regrettable since here one finds clearly for the first time in history the idea of the Arabs as simply “transmitters” of Greek thought (hence, such an idea existed a long time before the “Orientalism” of the nineteenth and [early] twentieth centuries). It is a pity that Martínez Gázquez, who otherwise highlights the apologetic nature involved in the choice of some translations, does not stress that a positive evaluation of an Arabic text does not always imply that it surpasses in the eyes of its Latin translator the earlier Greek tradition – only some, not all, of the Latin translators were convinced of its containing substantial novelties compared to the latter.

The remaining five relatively brief chapters discuss “the importance of Spain” (three small testimonies); “criticisms of the translation process” (Muslim reluctance to give books to Christians; R. Bacon and Simon of Genoa on weaknesses in existing translations; James II of Aragon and his interest in Arabic medical texts); “Toledo as medieval city of knowledge” (thirteen testimonies, from Raymond of Marseilles to Dalmau ses Planes); and “Castilian texts” (the Castilian translation of a Lapidary on the request of Alphonse X). Somewhat surprisingly, both in the second and the last of these chapters, Martínez Gázquez mentions the burning of books in the framework of events of the “reconquista”. In the last he refers also to the Castilian translation (which first appeared in 1493, not in 1531 – see M.J. Lacarra, “El Exemplariao contra los engaños y peligros del mundo: las transformaciones del Calila en Occidente”, in M.H. Cortés (dir), Exemplariao contra los engaños y peligros del mundo. Estudios y Edición. Valencia: Universitat de València, 2007, pp. 15–41, p. 21) of John of Padua's earlier-mentioned Latin translation from Hebrew of Kal ī la wa-Dimna, as well as to Cervantes’ Don Quixote. If the former is at best “late medieval”, the latter is clearly no longer “medieval”.

In brief, the present volume offers a valuable survey of original medieval Latin texts that offer a – positive or negative – evaluation of the “new Arabic sciences”. However, it sometimes fails to provide a fully critical evaluation of all the elements involved in the quoted texts. Finally, it has to be noted that the very title of the book is somewhat misleading, especially insofar as not all names given are names of translators and not all of the texts mentioned are “scientific”.