Michael Scot (~1175 – ~1235): A major Scottish figure in medieval Science

Talk by Prof. Alexander Mackinnon

Michael Scot, the 13th century astrologer and astronomer, has had a long afterlife in Scottish culture but most of what people know about him is folk myth or literary romance; tales of wizardry and soothsaying. After a look at these amusing stories we turn to the real Michael Scot, “the leading intellectual in Europe during the first third of the 13th century”. We outline the main stages of his career: his work from 1215 in Toledo, Spain, translating texts of classical and Arabic writers into Latin; time spent in northern Italy from about 1220; his ten-year period as Court Astrologer to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Finally we ask, why would we remember him now?