ABSTRACT
A mental wall separated the worlds of Islamdom and Latin Christendom, a barrier as formidable as the Pyrenees that for centuries separated the two civilizations geographically. The island had by then been ruled by the Arabs for almost three centuries, and its leading city, Palermo, was a center of Islamic civilization rivaling Cordova. Stephen's translation contained a helpful glossary of Greek and Arabic technical terms with Latin equivalents. The translation had a long life in the Latin medical tradition. Translating Arabic science to Latin in the 12th century came as naturally as had Jerome's Latin translation of Hebrew and Greek scripture in the 4th century. With Constantine, a new round of medical translation begins, from Arabic to Latin, forming a chain of transmission that reached from Salerno back to Hellenistic Alexandria, with Edessa, Nisibis, Jundi Shahpur and Baghdad providing the bridges.
