Abstract: The device comprises a luminous source 3 in the form of a circular ring, an optical doublet 4 and a matrix camera 5 on the lens of which the doublet 4 carries the elliptic image of the source 3 given by the cornea 2 of the eye 1. An electronic card 15 connected to the outlet of the matrix camera 5 supplies from a video signal, made up of a plurality of video lines and derived from the camera 5, a plurality of numerical values describing the elliptic image. A microprocessor element 19 receives and processes this plurality of numerical values so as to extract the value information from the large bending radius, the small bending radius and the angular position of the main axis of the cornea 2.