Last summer OSU’s Rare Books & Manuscripts Library acquired a wonderful book to add to its growing collection of incunabula (books printed prior to 1501). Printed in Brescia by Angelus and Jacobus Britannicus in 1494 (the colophon states that the firm completed the job on 24 December, just in time for Christmas) , this rather unassuming, small-ish octavo volume in its non-descript stiff vellum 18^th-century binding offers a good deal more than meets the eye. Between the book’s covers lies the Summa de virtutibus et vitiis (otherwise known as the Summa aurea, or Golden Summa), a thirteenth-century moral-theological encyclopedia written by the Dominican preacher, William Peraldus (ca. 1200-1271?). Peraldus’s summae originally appeared as two separate works, the Summa de vitiis (ca. 1236) which exhaustively treated the qualities and characteristics of the seven deadly sins, or vices, and their constituent parts, and the Summa de virtutibus (ca. 1248), which built upon the earlier work by providing an in-depth description of the seven cardinal virtues standing in direct opposition to the principal vices. But by 1250 the two texts were circulating together so often that they were frequently recognized as a single work. Together, Peraldus’s Summae became two of the most important preachers’ and confessors’ hand­books of the later Middle Ages: the Summa de virtutibus survives in over 300 manuscripts, while the Summa de vitiis has come down to us in approximately 500 manuscript copies. The two works are replete with hundreds of exempla, historical and fanciful anec­dotes, and quotations from Classical, Patristic, and contemporary authorities, and through their influence on preaching and confessional practice, Peraldus’s Summae and the moral and pastoral theology they promote extended beyond the clerical realm to impact the everyday lives of late-medieval Christians across Europe.

Massively popular, the Summa aurea was a natural candidate for the efforts and attention of Europe’s first printers who frequently relied upon the literary products of the Middle Ages as sources for their own publishing efforts. Appearing in over thirty incunabular and early printed editions—a fact that along with the large number of surviving manuscripts testifies to the continued popularity and importance of the text during the three centuries after its initial appearance—Peraldus’s work influenced not just preachers, confessors, and theologians, but also famous literary authors such as Chaucer and Dante. In spite of its long-lived popularity and wide-ranging effect on the moral theology and vernacular literature of the later Middle Ages, the Summa aurea has yet to appear in an authoritative modern edition or translation, a fact that makes early printed edi­tions of Peraldus’s work like the one we recently acquired indispensable resources for scholars.

Eric J. Johnson, Associate Curator