Constantine the African

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Constantine the African, <a href="/facts/Order_of_Saint_Benedict/wPDY4zrT">O.S.B.</a> was a physician who lived in the 11th century. The first part of his life was spent in <a href="/facts/Ifriqiya/BVCb9fTR">Ifriqiya</a> and the rest in <a href="/facts/Italy/tUf0PDYF">Italy</a>. He first arrived in Italy in the coastal town of <a href="/facts/Salerno/zqTIXxJk">Salerno</a>, home of the <a href="/facts/Schola_Medica_Salernitana/swjXawh4">Schola Medica Salernitana</a>, where his work attracted attention from the local Lombard and Norman rulers. Constantine then became a <a href="/facts/Benedictine/wPDY4zrT">Benedictine</a> <a href="/facts/Monk/mDhTrNcB">monk</a>, living the last decades of his life at the abbey of <a href="/facts/Monte_Cassino/qBb2kJcB">Monte Cassino</a>.
There is some debate about his birth and family religion, although it is well known that he ended his life as a monk at the Latin Christian Abbey of Monte Cassino, in southern Italy. This religious controversy suggested that he might have been born as a Muslim, and after migration converted to Catholic Christianity, or he might have been born as a Christian within an Arabic-speaking family. The native language of Constantine the African was Arabic. He was also fluent in Greek, Latin, and other languages, the skills he acquired during his extensive travels. His journey included Egypt, Syria, India, Ethiopia, and Persia. He was well-versed in medical knowledge before his arrival to Salerno in Italy where he joined the abbey of Monte Cassino south of Rome in 1077. 
It was in <a href="/facts/Italy/tUf0PDYF">Italy</a> where Constantine compiled his vast opus, mostly composed of translations from <a href="/facts/Arabic_language/A1e66hVV">Arabic</a> sources. He translated into <a href="/facts/Latin_language/pM3Kge85">Latin</a>, books of the great masters of <a href="/facts/Arabic_medicine/svhFmaDr">Arabic medicine</a>: <a href="/facts/Muhammad_ibn_Zakariya_al-Razi/PC32Rzes">Razes</a>, <a href="/facts/Ishaq_Ibn_Imran/ScFAmeI5">Ibn Imran</a>, <a href="/facts/Isaac_Israeli_ben_Solomon/rx1yGw7q">Ibn Suleiman</a>, and <a href="/facts/Ibn_al-Jazzar/ECt6tLx6">Ibn al-Jazzar</a>; these translations are housed today in libraries in <a href="/facts/Italy/tUf0PDYF">Italy</a>, <a href="/facts/Germany/paluuWBX">Germany</a>, <a href="/facts/France/CxIeIKM3">France</a>, <a href="/facts/Belgium/YKuMXP5j">Belgium</a>, and <a href="/facts/England/U9mE5bGL">England</a>. They were used as textbooks from the <a href="/facts/Middle_Ages/RqzEKB9v">Middle Ages</a> to the seventeenth century.

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Constantine the African