GERARD OF CREMONA. — Medieval translator, b. at Cremona in 1114, d. in 1187. He translated scientific and philosophical works from Arabic into Latin and was one of the first and most effective agents in the progressive contact of Latin medieval culture with Arabic, Hebrew and Greek learning. After completing his early studies in his native city, he went, while still very young, to Toledo, where he carried out his work, first as a pupil, then as a collaborator, and finally as the leading figure of the famous school of translators promoted by Archbishop Raymond.
Among the seventy or more works, philosophical, scientific and mathematical, translated by G., of capital importance for the development of medieval philosophy are Aristotle’s *Physics*, *De coelo et mundo*, the first three books of the *Meteorology* (the fourth had already been translated from the Greek by Henry Aristippus, d. 1162), *De generatione et corruptione*, the *Posterior Analytics* with the commentary of Themistius, the pseudo-Aristotelian *Liber de causis* (an Arabic compilation drawn from Proclus’ *Elementatio theologica*). Fundamental elements of medieval science itself are the translations of Avicenna’s *Canon of Medicine*, Euclid’s *Elements*, and Ptolemy’s *Almagest* (already translated from the Greek in Sicily about 1160, while G.’s version was completed in 1175). He also translated writings by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Archimedes, Hippocrates, Galen, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Isaac Israeli, etc.