Constantine the African Constantine the African (Latin:
Constantinus Africanus) (1017, Kairouan – 1087, Monte Cassino)
was a Tunisian doctor of the eleventh century. The first part of
his life was spent in Tunisia and the rest in Italy. In Salerno,
Italy, he became a professor of medicine and his work attracted
widespread attention. A few years later Constantine became a
Benedictine monk, living the last two decades of his life in the
Monte Cassino monastery. It was in Italy where Constantine
compiled his vast opus, mostly composed of translations from
Arabic sources. He translated into Latin books of the great
masters of Arabic medicine: Razes Ali Ibn Massaouia Baghdad, Ibn
Imran, Ibn Suleiman, and Ibn Al-Jazzar. These translations are
housed today in libraries in Italy, Germany, France, Belgium,
and England. They were used as textbooks from the Middle Ages to
the seventeenth century. The historians of Constantine The
twelfth century monk Peter the Deacon is the first historian to
have written the biography