New evidence on the origins of the Latin Mirror of Simple Souls from a forgotten Paduan manuscript

Abstract

This article examines an overlooked fifteenth-century document which attacks and refutes thirty-five extracts from a Latin copy of the condemned fourteenth-century work The Mirror of Simple Souls. It gives an overview of the document's origins, provenance, and contents, and then discusses how certain omissions in the text's source citations have crucial implications for more firmly establishing the date of origin for the Latin translation of the Mirror.

The Text as Heretic: Mixed Genres and Polemical Techniques in a Refutation of the Mirror of Simple Souls

“…He seems to have little tolerance for the metaphorical and paradoxical language of mysticism, and takes the Mirror's statements at face value. 23 He begins the text by copying out the first error from the Mirror, taken from chapter 5. 24 But, rather than immediately refute the error, he initially sets it aside and instead begins with what is essentially a short legal consilium on the question of the text's overall 19 Trombley,New Evidence,146,151. legitimacy.…”