Judah ben Solomon ha-Kohen ibn Matqa was born in Toledo around 1215 and was a disciple of Meʼir ben Ṭodros ha-Levi Abulafia. Ibn Matqa seems to have been a later addition to his name (Sirat). Judah was well educated in Arabic and mastered the Arabic sciences and the rabbinic tradition. At the age of eighteen (1233), while still in Spain, he engaged in correspondence in Arabic with a philosopher at the court of Emperor Frederick II about geometrical and astronomical problems. The identity of the philosopher with whom he corresponded is still unknown, but scholarly sugg…