les, where there was a famous medical school. From Salerno Adelard traveled to Sicily, which at that time was under Norman control but still strongly influenced by its Arabic past. He then visited Cilicia (an ancient district of southern Anatolia, in modern Turkey) on the northeast coast of the Mediterranean, and followed the coast of the Mediterranean east to Syria and Palestine. By 1130 he was back in Bath, England.
Adelard became an expert in the Arabic language, which he might have learned in Spain or in Sicily, and came into contact with Spanish-Arabic texts which could have been brought from Spain to Sicily by several scholars who had lived in Spain. Adelard translated some of these works into Latin, and was instrumental in introducing Arabic knowledge and the Arabic tradition of rational scientific inquiry to Europe. His latest work, a text on cosmology, was addressed to the young prince who later became Henry II, and may date to 1149.
Adelard was one of the first medieval scholars to seek knowledge by traveling in Greece and Asia Minor, and to utilize the knowledge of the Arabians in discussions of mathematics and natural science. He was the author of a number of works in Latin, including translations of Arabic works on arithmetic, astronomy, astrology and talismans on which he may have cooperated with a scholar of Arabic; and several original literary and philosophical works including texts on the study of liberal arts, falconry, natural science, cosmology and the use of the abacus. Three of his original works, on natural science and falconry, are addressed to a nephew who took an active part in the dialog.
His first known work, a text on philosophy, was written before 1116 and dedicated to William, Bishop of Syracuse. Syracuse was one of the most important cities of ancient Sicily; this work was probably written around the time of Adelard's visit to Sicily, but its Platonic tone indicates that Adelard had not yet been influenced by the learning of the Arabs. His most influential work was his translation, from Arabic into Latin, of Euclid's Elements, which became a standard textbook of geometry for the next eight centuries.
Modern scholars first became interested in Abelard, not for his translations or scientific works, but for De eodem et diverso, contrasting the virtues of the seven liberal arts with worldly interests. The historian of Aristotelianism, Amable Jourdain, first drew attention to the work in 1819, and Barth´el´emy Haur´eau devoted a whole chapter to the text in Histoire de la philosophie m´edi´evale (1850). In 1903, De eodem et diverso was the first of Adelard’s works to receive a modern critical edition, by Hans Willner. Josef Reiners gave a prominent position to Adelard’s doctrine in his study of scholasticism (Der aristotelische Realismus in der Fr¨uhscholastik), and attention soon shifted to Adelard’s contributions to the history of science. Recently scholars have revisited Adelard’s position on logic and the question of universals.
Adelard’s translation of Euclid’s Elements from Arabic into Latin was the first introduction of this work to European scholars. Adelard appears to have made three separate translations of Elements. The first version was a translation of all fifteen books (the thirteen original books written by Euclid and the two additional books written by Hypsicles), which seems to have come from a translation of al-Hajjaj's from Greek into Arabic. The second version contains different wording for the statements of the propositions, and the proofs are often only outlines or indications of how proofs might be constructed. Experts have concluded that Adelard used an unknown Arabic source for this version, rather than al-Hajjaj's translations. The third version of Euclid's Elements was a commentary rather than a translation of the original text, and may not be Adelard’s work although it was written before 1200, and is widely attributed to him. Roger Bacon quoted this third version in his works. Johannes Campanus probably had access to Adelard's translation of Elements; it was Campanu