CARSONO, CORSONO, or CARSI, JACOB (or Jacob ben Abraham Isaac):
Spanish astronomer of the fourteenth century. He was commissioned by King Pedro IV. of Aragon to translate from Catalonian into Hebrew the astronomical tables known as "The Tables of Don Pedro," which, at Don Pedro's command, had been begun by Maestre Piero Gilebert, and finished by Gilebert's pupil, Dalmacio de Planis. About 1376 Carsono wrote at Seville a treatise in Arabic on the astrolabe. This he himself translated into Hebrew at Barcelona in 1378. Ḥayyim ibn Musa ascribes cabalistic miracles to Carsono.
Bibliography:
- Steinschneider, Hebr. Uebers. pp. 596, 639;
- idem, Notice sur les Tables Astronomiques Attribuées à Pierre III. d'Aragon, Rome, 1881.
