This project examines the life of a single text, Alcabitius’ Introduction to Astrology. The study follows the historical trajectory of the text from its infancy in tenth-century Damascus, to its translation from Arabic to Latin in twelfth-century Spain, to its incorporation into Italian universities during the Renaissance, and finally to its transformation from manuscript to print in late fifteenth-century Venice. From this textual biography, the project develops a culturally-sensitive and situated account of the transmission of astrological knowledge from the Islamic world into the Latin West. A close study of a selection of the Introduction and its surviving manuscripts, commentaries, and printed versions reveals a diverse group of medieval readers who appropriated the text in various ways according to their unique set of values and beliefs. Studying these readers and their contexts in conjunction reveals how astrology took shape in Europe by assimilating and adapting Islamic ideas.