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d. 1292 England
John Peckham (or Pecham) (c. 1230 – 1292) was a native of Sussex who was educated at Lewes Priory and became a Franciscan friar about 1250. He studied under Bonaventure at the University of Paris and became regent master (official lecturer) in theology.
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As you see double if you push the eye out of its place with your finger; so prelates, through evil counsel, judge a priest to be worthy of two benefices, when he ought to be contented with one.
[Perspectiva communis was written to] compress into concise summaries the teachings of perspective, which [in existing treatises] are presented with great obscurity.
Formerly the Church with its prelates of old time, was golden in wisdom, silver in cleanness of life, brazen in eloquence, which are three things needful to a preacher; that is, brightness of wisdom, cleanness of life, and sonorousness of eloquence. But of the feet, the last, that is the modern prelates, part is iron through their hardness of heart, and part is clay by their carnal luxury.
Among all the studies of natural causes and reasons, light most delights the contemplators; among the great things of mathematics, the certainty of its demonstrations most illustriously elevates the minds of its investigators; perspective must therefore be preferred to all human discourses and disciplines, in the study in which radiant lines are expounded by means of demonstrations and in which the glory is found not only of mathematics, but also physics: it is adorned with the flowers of one and the other.
Light from a concave luminous body is received most powerfully at the centre. The reason for this is that, for every point of a concave body, perpendicular rays, which are stronger than others, converge in the centre. Therefore the virtues of celestial bodies are incident most powerfully in and near the centre of the world.
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