Zacuto's Almanach Perpetuum
Almanach Perpetuum de Zacuto
- Date
- 1496 (compuesto c. 1478) · confidence high
- Place
- Leiria, Portugal
- Credited to
- Abraham Zacuto; Latin translation by José Vizinho
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What it is
Astronomical tables of the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets, composed in Hebrew around 1478 by Abraham Zacuto and published in Latin at Leiria in 1496. They gave the solar declination needed to calculate latitude at sea, and Vasco da Gama's pilots carried them.
The Hebrew original (Ha-Hibbur ha-gadol) was written in Salamanca; the Latin edition of Leiria (printed by Abraão d'Ortas) dates from 1496. Zacuto fled Portugal after the expulsion of the Jews (1497).
What it led to
- solar declination tables used by Portuguese pilots
- greater accuracy of latitude on the India route (1497-1498)
- spread of printed astronomical ephemerides in the Iberian world