In some of the most beautiful word portraits I have ever read, Mark Gregory Pegg has crafted a history of the West (the later Roman Empire through the end of the Middle Ages) that will captivate readers. With precision and delicacy, the pages come alive with the spiritual yearnings of people so like ourselves in their desire for the good life and yet so different in how they conceived it and thought to achieve it. This book was almost impossible to put down. It is one of the major accomplishments of modern historical scholarship and in every way a tour de force. Pegg is the real thing, a genuine magister, and Beatrice's Last Smile is a masterpiece.
Mark Gregory Pegg is a Professor of Medieval History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom and The Corruption of Angels: The Great Inquisition of 1245-1246.