In 1564, Juan Maldonado (1533-1583) taught the first philosophical course at the Jesuit College of Paris, a series of lectures on Aristotle's De anima. While no written versions of the lectures themselves are extant today, what has come down to us is the tract edited here, which Maldonado prepared for the students later.
The text has a special focus on the soul's immortality and links a metaphysical reflection on the nature of the soul to a theory of cognition. It is one of the first Jesuit treatises so far known concerning the scientia de anima.