A resolution to the vexed problem whether a troubadour's love is erotic or spiritual is offered by Paolo Cherchi through a new reading of Andreas Capellanus' De Amore (written around 1186-1196). He suggests that Andreas, using a rhetorical strategy that creates ambiguity, condemns courtly love because its claim that passion generates virtue is untenable and deceitful. Although Andreas grasped the core of the courtly love 'system, ' namely, the relation between passion and ethics, he failed to consider the notion of mezura, that courtly virtue through which troubadours...