La Colombina shows its Averroes manuscripts on his 900th anniversary
Topics Archidiócesis de Sevilla
The Capitular Colombina Library of Seville Cathedral exhibits manuscripts and printed works by Averroes on the 900th anniversary of his birth in Córdoba.
The Capitular Colombina Library of Seville Cathedral is showing the collection of manuscripts and printed works by Averroes held in its collections, on the occasion of the 900th anniversary of the thinker's birth in Córdoba, which falls in 2026. The anniversary is commemorated by the Archdiocese of Seville.
What can be seen
Among the pieces, a 14th-century Castilian manuscript stands out, copied by several hands, containing the Commentaries on Aristotle's Logic attributed to Averroes. An Italian manuscript from 1477 of the Colliget, his medical treatise, is also kept; it was soon translated into Hebrew and Latin and became a reference manual in the medical faculties of medieval Christian Europe.
To these are added several printed works from the 15th and 16th centuries from workshops in Bologna, Rome and Venice on Aristotelian metaphysics, medical treatises and philosophical texts. One of them is the Paraphrasis de partibus et Generatione Animalium, a commentary on Aristotle's biological works whose Arabic original was lost and which reached Europe through Jacob Mantino's Latin translation. A handwritten note on the last page indicates that Hernando Colón bought the book in Padua on April 5, 1531.
Averroes and Seville
According to the Archdiocese, Averroes wrote one of his most important works in Seville, the Destruction of the «Destruction of the Philosophy» of Algazel, of which the library has a copy printed in Venice in 1527.
The institution explains that the presence of these holdings in Hernando Colón's collection responds to the project of the «Fernandina library», conceived to bring together in Seville a universal collection open to all knowledge and languages. The Archdiocese notes that this spirit fits an author who understood knowledge as a bridge between cultures.
Who reports it
The information comes from the Archdiocese of Seville, which disseminates it through Virtudes de la Riva Pérez, senior library technician of the Cathedral and the Archbishopric of Seville.
