The astrological-astronomical encyclopedia in MS Paris 1058

The present study scrutinizes four chapters of a vast astrological and astronomical work which was originally comprised of at least thirty-four Gates. It is conserved today only in fols. 50a-126a of Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS héb. 1058 (IMHM: F 22230; henceforth MS Paris 1058),¹ and was already examined in the nineteenth century by Salomon Munk and Hermann Zotenberg, who designated it "un vaste ouvrage d'astrologie." They suggested that it was composed in the first half of the twelfth century by Abraham Bar Hiyya (ca. 1065-ca. 1136), and that it constitutes in fact the fulfillment of the pledge the latter made to write a separate astrological work².