Gregory Choniades
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gregory Choniades (Choniates, Chioniades) (d. 1302) was a Byzantine Greek astronomer. He founded an astronomical academy at Trebizond.
Information about Choniades survives from some contemporary sources. In 1347, George Chrysococces (Chrysococcis) writes that "a certain Chioniades, who had been raised in Constantinople, fell in love with mathematics and other sciences. After he had mastered medicine, he wished to study astronomy; he was informed that, in order to satisfy his desire, he would have to go to Persia. He traveled to Trebizond, where he was given some assistance by the Emperor Alexios II of Trebizond, and thence proceeded to Persia itself, where he persuaded yet another Emperor to aid him. He eventually learned all that he wished to know, and returned to Trebizond, bearing away from Persia a number of astronomical texts which he translated into Greek."[1]
Sixteen of Choniades' letters have survived, which confirm that he received assistance from Alexius II and traveled to Persia. Choniades translated a number of Arabic and Persian works on mathematics and astronomy, including the astronomical tables of his teacher Sams-ud-Din, and introduced the astrolabe to Europe. He also translated the Sinjaric Tables by al-Khazini, an Islamic astronomer of Byzantine Greek descent, from Arabic into Greek.[2]
Choniades also visited Tabriz, at the time the Mongol capital, and served as Orthodox Bishop there.[1] He seems to have been in Tabriz from 1295 to 1296 and returned to Constantinople. In 1302, he returned to Tabriz as Bishop. According to David Pingree, this may have been in connection with Alexios II of Trebizond's attempt to form an alliance with Ghazan Khan in the summer of 1302.
He died at Constantinople, probably in the second decade of the fourteenth century.
[edit] Notes
[edit] Further reading
- Pingree, David, "Gregory Choniades and Palaeologan Astronomy," in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 18, 1964, pp. 135-160.
- Fryde, Edmund Boleslaw "The Early Palaeologan Renaissance 1261 - C. 1360" 2000
- Leichter, Joseph (student of David Pingree)."The Zij as-Sanjari of Gregory Chioniades: Text, Translation and Greek to Arabic Glossary".
