The Moral Treatise on the Eye

Peter of Limoges?s Moral Treatise on the Eye is arguably the single most important medieval text situated at the junction of two dynamic areas of intellectual history: the history of optical science and the history of pastoral care. Richard Newhauser, well known for his meticulous and intelligent studies of the virtues and vices in medieval preaching, builds upon his earlier articles on Peter of Limoges to produce a translation that will stimulate new scholarship in a range of fields, from pastoralia and Church history to devotional practice, reading habits, education and pedagogy, and clerical formation. The rich and thorough quality of Newhauser?s scholarship is fully in evidence in the Introduction, and his exemplary annotations bring alive a host of literary, philosophical, theological and scientific sources to create a richly nuanced portrait of the intellectual and cultural scene in late thirteenth-century Paris. -- Suzanne Conklin Akbari, University of Toronto