Am. Philosophical Society

Classical romantic; identity in the Latin poetry of Vincent Bourne.

Haan (English and neo-Latin studies, Queen's U. Belfast) characterizes British poet Bourne (1695-1747) as a prolific and highly skillful neo-Latin poet whose work deserve close critical attention in its classical, neo-Latin, and vernacular contexts. She looks at his reflections of the self, reciprocal human and beast identities, perspectives on London, and death and art. Selected Latin poems with facing English translation are appended. Only names are indexed. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Renaissance vision from spectacles to telescopes.

Ilardi (emeritus, history, U. of Massachusetts-Amherst) draws on a great number of new archival documents discovered over the past half dozen years, along with relatively new archaeological findings in various regions of Europe. Eyeglasses were invented in Italy, and that is where most of the documentary evidence is, so he perforce spends much attention there, but does also include developments across Europe to the extent possible. Among his topics are early diffusion, markets, international trade, the art, and moving to celestial vision. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)