Apparently, the papers assembled in this volume must have been presented at a conference, but the details are not given. Trying to expand our understanding of human history and nature in the pre-modern world, the global topic pertains to desires, both expressed and repressed, and this primarily in the Mediterranean world. It remains rather unclear what is meant by this geographic term. Do the hinterlands of the Mediterranean belong to that or not? If Mediterranean, where are the contributions by Arabic and Hebrew scholars (there is one exception, Amos Bertolacci's study on Avicenna's metaphysics)? Would Portugal have to be included? Why is Morocco, for instance, not considered?

But what are desires, and how would we gain a focus when we talk about desires? Desires determine virtually all aspects of human existence: hunger, thirst, sexual desire, love, longing for God, intellectual curiosity, personal economic interests, political aims, religious aspects; and then there are, by contrast, fears of those desires. We know that men can fear women, and vice versa. Lust and aggression are predicated on desire. Demonizing 'the other' is a negative expression of desire (really?). Intellectuals desire to learn; scientists are driven by desire; artists desire to express themselves; mystics experience the Godhead and desire for a repeat of that experience; a peasant woman might desire to sell her eggs profitably at the market; a merchant would desire a good day for his wares; people desire to be attractively clothed; and customers in a tavern desire to be served well. In short, I do not know what to make out of the global topic chosen for this volume.

After the introduction (in English) by Pietro Silanos, there are five sections, each consisting of four or five articles. The topics are highly diverse: metaphysics of desire; institutions and literature; body and desire: science, emotions, magic; disciplining desires; and desire expressed in cultural manifestations beyond the European and the medieval scope. The articles are written in English (at times a bit faulty), Italian, and French, whereas German and Spanish are missing. All bibliographical information is placed in footnotes, but when a reference is repeated, we must search with great effort for the full data somewhere before that. There is no cumulative bibliography, but the volume concludes with an index of persons and place names, and an index of manuscripts consulted. Finally, there is no biographical information about the individual contributors.

Spot checks quickly demonstrate that the authors have drawn mostly from a narrow scope of sources and references and ignore research or editions of better quality published in other languages. For instance, Francesca Sivo discusses Andreas Capellanus famous treatise De amore (ca. 1185-1190) as if she were the first one to do so. The relevant edition by Fritz Peter Knapp (2006) or any of the major studies published in languages other than Italian are simply missing. Worse, though, proves to be the rather myopic perspective and text selection in a variety of cases, so when Francesco Paolo De Ceglia discusses the werewolf in connection with the return of the dead and then does not even mention Marie de France's "Bisclavret" (though I must admit, Bisclavret is a different kind of werewolf). Marina Montesano turns her attention to the infamous Malleus Maleficarum and still claims that Jacob Sprenger contributed to it, when Heinrich Kramer was the sole author. The topic of revenge is almost omnipresent in medieval literature, but Lidia Zanetti Domingues does not seem to know much about recent research addressing this issue.

But let us try to see the forest and not get lost studying all the trees. The goal is to explore the metaphysics of desire, which should be defined a little, but that is not happening. Medieval scientists were driven by desire for knowledge - isn't that the case for all scholars and scientists until today? All medieval religion and hence also religious literature can be viewed through the lens of desire, both within a monastery and a parish, in the private home and in the Holy See. We are here invited to view the common discussions of the Song of Songs, for instance, as expression of desire (Marco Rainini). But then we also are confronted with the tension between the Church and the secular powers in the eleventh century as a manifestation of conflicting desires (Nicolangelo D'Acunto). Unfortunately, as much as I am trying to look for the forest, more and more trees block my view. It might have helped to have a working definition of 'desire' available and/or if the editors had asked the contributors to provide an explanation early on what they might mean with that concept. Curiously, the volume is titled Images of Desire, when in most cases desires are not representable in visual form. The color plates represent an approximation, but they mirror only scenes with a saint, Christ, or the Virgin Mary (the images in the first category are not numbered).

At the same time, what is new about many of the studies compiled here? Francesco Santi explores desire in Dante's Divina Commedia; Charles Burnett examines desire as a motive in medieval astrology and magic; Agostino Paravicini Bagliani discusses the desire for immortality among members of the papal court in the late Middle Ages; Marina Montesano focuses on magic, witchcraft, and erotic desire; and Antonio Musarta defines the motive behind the countless travels and explorations in the late Middle Ages as desire, truly a hodgepodge of topics under the umbrella of 'desire.'

Pietro Silanos highlights the tensions between impulse and discipline as a reflection of desires, although the latter would be the very opposite, the repression of desire, and this with a view toward the Black Death as it raged in Tuscany from 1347-1350 or so, which caused a trauma (367), whereas 'desire' might be the wrong term in this context. Boccaccio's Decameron would have to be read as an expression of the desire to reestablish rational society where rules and laws dominated. That concept could be reasonable suggestion, and it had been proposed already a long time ago by the philosopher Kurt Flasch (Vernunft und Vergnügen, 2002), but his arguments have not been taken into consideration, at least not by Silanos.

The contributors offer lengthy footnotes with references to a high amount of Italian research literature, which other scholars have tended to ignore. But in that process, the current status of research is not fully reflected either. I cannot help but to assume that the call for papers attracted scholars from many different fields, and all of them were accepted, so they could also contribute their papers. Those are, generally, well edited, but they often fail to present a clear thesis or argument, or contribute to the global theme only marginally.

In conclusion, I would have desired to see better organization, more critical analysis, and fuller bibliographical research. It is laudable that the idea was to project "a history of imaginaries" (5; whatever the last word might mean), which implies a "reflected consciousness" (6; again, what does this say?) in "bodily dimension and desire" (7). The present volume leaves much to desire, even though, wetting our appetite, Silanos claims, in philosophical terms, "[d]esire is life" which can be "a prelude to anarchy" (12). I guess that Gert Melville is correct in describing 'desire' as an enormously complex phenomenon (104), and maybe that is one of the main reasons why the reader will be rather frustrated with this book the goal of which might be just too ambitious.

Albrecht Classen