Nicola Polloni, . Durham Medieval and Renaissance Monographs and Essays, 6. Durham: Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2020, 318 pp.

The study of metaphysics in the medieval era most often evokes figures like thirteenth and fourteenth centuries luminaries such as Thomas Aquinas, William Ockham, or Duns Scotus. But even before that time, an important meeting of Western philosophy with Arabic ideology established an early attempt to systematize Latin metaphysics. Such a project was enhanced by a team of translators working principally in peaceful Toledo, Spain, in the mid-twelfth century. The focus of the work to hand regarding the renewal of Latin metaphysics is on a groundbreaking figure in this dizzying and far-reaching context, one Dominicus Gundissalinus, at once a reconciler and synthesizer of a stream of thought traceable to Plato and Boethius.