Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- INTRODUCTION: VISION AND VISUAL ANALOGY DURING THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
- 1 PONDERARE STATERA MEDITATIONIS: SELF AS SELF-PRESENTATION IN EARLY DOMINICAN RELIGIOUS LIFE
- 2 THE DEVIL IN HUMAN FORM: CONFESSION, DECEPTION AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE
- 3 PETER OF LIMOGES, PERSPECTIVIST OPTICS AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF VISION
- 4 NORMALIZING ERROR: PETER AUREOL ON THE IMPORTANCE OF APPEARANCES
- 5 PROBABILITY AND PERSPECTIVE: NICHOLAS OF AUTRECOURT AND THE FRAGMENTATION OF VISION
- CONCLUSION: VISION, PROMISE, DEFERRAL
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth series
3 - PETER OF LIMOGES, PERSPECTIVIST OPTICS AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF VISION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- INTRODUCTION: VISION AND VISUAL ANALOGY DURING THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
- 1 PONDERARE STATERA MEDITATIONIS: SELF AS SELF-PRESENTATION IN EARLY DOMINICAN RELIGIOUS LIFE
- 2 THE DEVIL IN HUMAN FORM: CONFESSION, DECEPTION AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE
- 3 PETER OF LIMOGES, PERSPECTIVIST OPTICS AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF VISION
- 4 NORMALIZING ERROR: PETER AUREOL ON THE IMPORTANCE OF APPEARANCES
- 5 PROBABILITY AND PERSPECTIVE: NICHOLAS OF AUTRECOURT AND THE FRAGMENTATION OF VISION
- CONCLUSION: VISION, PROMISE, DEFERRAL
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth series
Summary
PETER OF LIMOGES AND THE TRACTATUS MORALIS DE OCULO
Towards the very end of the Perspectiva, his influential treatise on vision, the thirteenth-century Franciscan natural philosopher Roger Bacon proclaims the wonders and powers of mirrors. They can make one man appear to be many men and one army to appear to be many armies. Some people, he adds, believe that demons can transform the air into a kind of mirror with which they reveal and betray hidden military encampments. Indeed, legend has it that the philosopher Socrates used mirrors to locate an evil dragon within its mountainous hiding places, a beast whose foul breath had poisoned both animals and men. “Anything,” Bacon concludes, “that has been hidden away in some concealed place in cities, armies and the like can be brought to light through reflected vision.” As it turns out, mirrors can even reveal secrets hidden in the pages of sacred scripture.
Imagine that an eye is placed in the centre of a spherical, concave mirror. The natural properties of this mirror are such that wherever that eye looks, it will see only itself. Now imagine that another eye, placed somewhere else, anywhere else but the mirror's centre, looks at the mirror. It will never see the reflected image of that other eye. One eye sees itself everywhere while remaining entirely invisible to the other – ubiquitous, yet hidden. These are peculiar phenomena, but well enough known during the second half of the thirteenth century.
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- Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval WorldOptics, Theology and Religious Life, pp. 75 - 116Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005