King Avicenna: the iconographic consequences of a mistranslation

• Autores: Dag Nikolaus Hasse
• Localización: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, ISSN 0075-4390, Nº 60, 1997, págs. 230-243
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The writer discusses the depiction in manuscripts and printed books of the ninth-century Islamic philosopher and physician Avicenna as a king. These depictions, the first of which date from about 1300, depict Avicenna with regal iconographic attributes, such as a crown, a throne, and a book. Although these attributes were sometimes employed metaphorically to indicate Avicenna's supreme position in the world of medical learning, the iconographic representation of him as a king was based on a mistake, having its origin in a mistranslation of an Arabic title bestowed upon Avicenna, the precise meaning of which so far remains unsolved.