C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Alfonso X of Castile (1221–1284)
Alfonso X., the Wise. King of Leon and Castile. A Spanish poet, historian, and scholar (1221–84). Ot his poetical compositions many are still extant; among them a poem on ‘The Chase,’ one on chemistry, some love songs, and ‘Canticles of Saint Mary.’ He was a student of astronomy, and reformed the Ptolemaic planetary tables, called after him ‘Alfonsine Tables.’ From his hand we have also a history of the Crusades, ‘The Great Conquest Over Sea,’ and a ‘General Chronicle’ of Spain; and he had commenced a ‘Great and General History’ of the world before his death. He was the first to codify the laws of the kingdoms of Spain. He had all accessible classic and Arabic works on philosophy and the sciences translated into Castilian. (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).