Late Medieval Translations of the Qurʾān (1450–1525): Discontinuity or Cumulativeness?

Abstract

What was the reason behind the new, still partly understudied, European “wave of translations” of the Qurʾān characteristic of the years 1440‒1530? Can we find a pattern behind the translation processes and techniques used by John of Segovia and his Muslim coworker, the team commissioned by Egidio da Viterbo, and the Sicilian Jewish convert Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada (alias Flavius Mithridate)? This new generation of Qurʾānic translations presents interesting innovations in contrast to the older works of Robert of Ketton and Marcos de Toledo. Even if the loss (Juan de Segovia) or the non-completion (Moncada) of part of these texts makes it difficult to draw definitive conclusions, there are still significant observations to be made about them: these translations were all bilingual or multilingual, featuring conscious strategies of presentation of the Arabic and Latin versions, and a new approach to the Muslim exegesis. And yet, these new and sophisticated works were no match for the older Iberian versions, and it was the Kettonian translation that became the first Latin translation printed in its entirety, whereas the new works of the years 1440‒1530 were lost or poorly transmitted. This paper tries to explain this paradox. Furthermore, through a comparative new methodology, it also aims at gauging the possible links between the older and the newer Latin translations of the Qurʾān suggesting specific a relationship between the Qurʾān of Marcos de Toledo and Moncada’s partial translation of MS. Vat. Ebr. 457.