Pope Sylvester II

Pope Sylvester II
Bishop of Rome
Sylvester, in blue, as depicted in the Gospels of Otto III
Church	Catholic Church
Papacy began	2 April 999
Papacy ended	12 May 1003
Predecessor	Gregory V
Successor	John XVII
Orders
Consecration	991
Personal details
Born	Gerbertus (Gerbert) c. 946 Belliac (?), Duchy of Aquitaine, France
Died	(1003-05-12)12 May 1003 (aged c. 57) Rome, Papal States
Other popes named Sylvester

Pope Sylvester II (Latin: Silvester II; c. 946 – 12 May 1003), originally known as Gerbert of Aurillac,^{[n 1]} was a scholar and teacher who served as the bishop of Rome and ruled the Papal States from 999 to his death. He endorsed and promoted study of Moorish and Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics and astronomy, reintroducing to Western Christendom the abacus, armillary sphere, and water organ, which had been lost to Latin Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. He is said to be the first in Christian Europe (outside of Al-Andalus) to introduce the decimal numeral system using the Hindu-Arabic numeral system.

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