Optics · a Light

The Book of Optics reached Kepler through a Basel printer

Ibn al-Haytham finished his Book of Optics in Cairo in the 1020s. Around 1200 it was translated into Latin under the name Alhazen, and it became the foundation of the subject in Europe. Roger Bacon used it, Witelo rewrote it at length, and John Peckham made a students' textbook out of it that was copied for two hundred years. In 1572 a printer at Basel, Friedrich Risner, issued the Latin Alhazen and Witelo together in a single volume. That book was on Kepler's desk. His own optics of 1604 is titled as a set of additions to Witelo, and it corrects Ibn al-Haytham on how the eye forms an image while working entirely inside the tradition that his book began.

Kitab al-Manazir · Cairo 1020s, Basel 1572