Most of the papers in this volume were first presented at the opening of a series of conferences named after John of Seville and Limia, and shared between the Córdoba Near Eastern Research Unit (CNERU) of Córdoba University and the Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe (CHASE) at the Warburg Institute, University of London. Both centres are devoted to showing how Europe was lit up from the Orient (Ex Oriente lux), and the papers themselves are relevant to the interests and the character of John of Seville (as described by Charles Burnett in the first contribution).