"This book contains the extant tradition of Benvenutus Grassus’ Treatise on the eye and six philological related studies. The tradition in Latin (Metz, Bibliothèques- Médiatèques, MS 176) is displayed with the four known versions in Middle English (Glasgow, Glasgow University Library, Hunter MSS 503 and 513); London, British Library, Sloane MS 661, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1468) along with one in Provençal (Basel, Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität, MS D.II.11). The diplomatic transcriptions of the manuscripts are synoptically arranged to ease the researchers’ consultation and comparison. The philological studies deal with the versions of the Latin tradition and with the common and diverging features of the English vernacular tradition, mainly in the Hunter MSS. Both the synoptic edition and the philological studies are the result of a collaborative edition and joint research on Hunter MSS providing a state-of-the-art approach to the treatises" (Publisher).

"Odo de Meung’s De Viribus Herbarum was one of the most widely known pieces of Fachliteratur in the latter part of Middle English, corroborated on account of the number of translations hitherto preserved in the different European vernacular languages such as French, German and Danish. In Middle English, there are up to nine complete versions of Macer Floridus’ rendering, together with a number of fragmentary pieces. Still, Glasgow University Library, MS Hunter 497 (ff. 1r-92r) is the only English version of the text which remains so far unedited. The present edition offers the diplomatic transcription of MS Hunter 497, also accompanied by a glossary, notes and introduction. The latter has been conceived as a state of the art of the Hunterian witness, containing the textual transmission of the text, a codicological/palaeographic description together with a comprehensive analysis of its linguistic provenance and scribal practices" (Publisher).