Plato Tiburtinus (Latin:Plato Tiburtinus, "Plato ofTivoli";fl. 12th century) was a 12th-centuryItalianmathematician,astronomer andtranslator who lived inBarcelona from 1116 to 1138.^[1] He is best known for translatingHebrew andArabic documents intoLatin, and was apparently the first to translate information on theastrolabe (an astronomical instrument) from Arabic.

Plato of Tivoli translated the Arab astrologerAlbohali's "Book of Birth" into Latin in 1136.^[2] He translatedClaudius Ptolemy'sTetrabiblos from Arabic to Latin in 1138,^[3] the astronomical works ofal-Battani,Theodosius'Spherics and theLiber Embadorum byAbraham bar Chiia.^[4]He has worked together with the Jewish mathematicianSavasorda (Abraham Bar Ḥiyya Ha-Nasi). His manuscripts were widely circulated and were among others used byAlbertus Magnus andFibonacci.

To him are attributed four works inscience-mathematics:

• The Liber Embadorum (“Book of Areas,” or “Practical Geometry”), it was transferred (after a dateastronomical specified in the text ) in 1145 from theHebrew. The book had an influence on theGeometry of Fibonacci book and contains one of the first comprehensive treatments of quadratic equations in theOccident.
• TheSpherics byTheodosius of Bithynia,
• Al-Battān, i’s al-Zij (“Astronomical Treatise”)
• The De usu astrolabii ofAbu’l-Qāsim Maslama (Ibn al-Sạffār), The manuscript contains information about the firstastrolabe in theWest.

The translations from the Arabic of seven other works (five astrological, one geomantical, and one medical [now lost]) are ascribed to Plato:

• Ptolemy’s Quadripartitum,
• The Iudicia Almansoris,
• The De electionibus horarum ofAli ibn Aḥmad al-Imrani,
• The De nativitatibus or De iudiciis nativitatum ofAbu 'Ali al-Khaiyat,
• The De revolutionibus nativitatum by Abū Bakr al-Ḥasan (Albubather),
• The Questiones geomantice or Liber Arenalis scientie by “Alfakini, son of Abizarch” or “son of Abraham”,
• A De pulsibus et urinis by “Aeneas”.

• Latin translations of the 12th century

• Baldassarre Boncompagni:Delle versioni fatte da Platone Tiburtino. Atti dell’ Accademia pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei, 4, 1851, S. 249–286
• F. J. Carmody:Arabic Astronomical and Astrological Sciences in Latin Translation: A Critical Bibliography. Berkeley, Los Angeles 1956
• Charles Homer Haskins:Studies in History of Medieval Science. Cambridge, Massachusetts 1924
• Charles Homer Haskins:The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1927
• George Sarton:Introduction to the History of Science. Band 2, Teil 1, Baltimore 1931, S. 177–179
• Moritz SteinschneiderDie Europäischen Übersetzungen aus dem Arabischen bis Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Graz 1956
• Moritz Steinschneider:Abraham Judaeus: Savasorda und Ibn Esra … In:Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik. Band 12, 1867, S. 1–44

• Minio-Paluello, Lorenzo (2008) [1970-80]."Plato of Tivoli".Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com.
• Translators
• Article in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello

• People from Tivoli, Lazio
• 12th-century Italian mathematicians
• Hebrew–Latin translators
• Arabic–Latin translators
• Christian Hebraists
• 12th-century astronomers
• 12th-century translators
• Medieval Italian astronomers

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing Latin-language text