Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World

Research in optical theory and philosophical questions associated with vision and epistemology in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have received considerable attention in recent decades. In addition to David Lindberg's works in medieval optics and Katherine Tachau's Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham (Leiden, 1988), there have been several important studies in the last decade, such as Robert Pasnau, Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1997) and Suzanne Conklin Akbari's Seeing Through the Veil: Optical Theory and Medieval Allegory (Toronto, 2004). Denery has taken a different approach to these issues, linking the philosophical discussion of perspective, visual error, and certitude of knowledge to the religious practices of scriptural exegesis, preaching, and confession. An opening essay on vision and visual analogy introduces the theme of perceptual errors rooted in differences between appearance and reality, such as mirror images, after images, a stick appearing bent in water, and other such occurrences. The first chapter explores the understanding of self and self-presentation in the training of Dominican preachers, making novices aware that vision can be a two-way process of seeing and being seen. This is followed by a chapter devoted to confession, which entailed both the self-scrutiny of the person confessing and the ability of the confessor to distinguish (and help the penitent distinguish) reality from appearances. The third chapter is centred on the secular Parisian master, Peter of Limoges, and his Tractatus moralis de oculo, which was a preaching manual that makes use of analogies based on optics and perspective. The last two chapters place the philosophical discussion of appearance and reality, and the related problems of cognition and certitude, in this broader context. One chapter examines Peter Aureol's treatment of visual error, while the last chapter attempts to show how Nicholas of Autrecourt used differences between appearance and reality, along with his critique of perceived causal relationships, to replace the authority of Aristotle with a return to scripture and preaching. The book has already attracted attention in the area of late medieval philosophy, especially among specialists of Nicholas of Autrecourt, even if many will not see the terms of debate with Bernard of Arezzo or Giles de Feno (Denery's ‘otherwise unknown Giles’, p.145) in the same way, or be comfortable with Denery's concluding characterisation of Autrecourt as a fideist. The book will also be of interest to those working on late medieval religious practice, especially in preaching and confession, and to some extent those working on late medieval art and literature. While it is to Denery's credit that he has been able to illuminate interrelations between late medieval philosophical and theological discussion with religious practice, it would have been even more enlightening had he (or anyone else) pushed further in that direction. There still remains the need for a satisfactory account of the relation of this interest in optics, vision, and cognition with the vigorous debate over the Beatific Vision that was precipitated by the views expressed by Pope John XXII at the end of the 1320s. Finally, the bibliography should have been prepared with more care. Beyond missing diacritical marks in some of the French titles, proper information on articles in collective volumes has to be obtained by looking elsewhere in the bibliography under the name of an editor, book title, or organisation. Sometimes even that does not help. For example, one cannot immediately tell in which volume listed under ‘Ecole Française de Rome’ one can find the article by Nicole Bériou, referenced only by that organisation and pagination. But this extensive bibliography is testimony both to the importance of the topics of vision, perspective, perceptual error, and cognition, and the resonance they had across so many areas of late medieval thought

Analogy · Art · Art history · Confession (law · Epistemology · Exegesis · Literature · Middle Ages · Perspective (graphical · Scrutiny · Theme (computing · Theology · Visual arts · Byzantine Studies and History · Historical Philosophy and Science · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Philosophy

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