Plutarch: de Facie Quae in Orbe Lunae Apparet: Introduction, Edition, English Translation, and Critical Commentary

In Plutarch. De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet, Luisa Lesage Gárriga offers a new critical edition with English translation of one of Plutarch’s most fascinating treatises, and yet one of the least known to the wider public. Dealing with the nature and function of the moon from multiple perspectives, this treatise offers a comprehensive overview of scientific knowledge and religious-philosophical thought from the first centuries CE. The difficulty of Plutarch’s style, the shortage of manuscripts, and the numerous text-critical interventions have often obscured the meaning of central passages of the treatise. By means of a new approach to the manuscripts’ readings and a more lenient use of editorial interventions and conjectures, Luisa Lesage Gárriga manages to bring innovative solutions to many of the problematic passages.

Luisa Lesage Gárriga, Ph.D. (2019), University of Groningen, is Lecturer in Ancient Greek Language and Literature at the University of Córdoba (Spain). She has published a number of articles on Plutarch, Textual Criticism and Late Antiquity religious and philosophical thought.