To extend on the theme of my earlier post on The Secret of Kells a little.
The increasing digitisation of library collections and rare books has drawn attention to the power of the art work in medieval illuminated manuscripts. Often this artwork appears as marginalia, sometimes bearing little relation to the written text. This artwork is variously lively, colourful and beautiful but also gruesome, bawdy and grotesque. Here’s a small collection of some of my favourite animal illustrations. The first of these is a musical Pangur Bán perhaps…
Cat with hurdy-gurdy, Book of hours, France, ca. 1485-1490. NY, Morgan, MS M.26, fol. 88r. Online source: Discarding images
Rats rowing (Ste-Geneviève, MS 143, 14th c.) Online source: It’s about time
Bartholomeus Anglicus, ‘Livre des propriétés des choses’ (‘De proprietatibus rerum’, French translation of Jean Corbechon), Paris 1447. Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 399, fol. 141vº. Online source: Bestiaire
Image from Faraḥ nāmah / Abū Bakr al-Muṭahhar ibn Abī al-Qāsim ibn Abī Saʻīd al-Jamālī maʻrūf bih Yazdī. Yazdī, al-Muṭahhar ibn Muḥammad, fl. 1184. [S.l : s.n., 16–?]. This is a natural history treatise that is illuminated with detailed multicolored illustrations of animals, birds, plants, stones and humans. Yale-SOAS Islamic Manuscript Gallery
revBestiary, England 13th century (Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 764, fol. 51r)
mouse
Image from from Faraḥ nāmah / Abū Bakr al-Muṭahhar ibn Abī al-Qāsim ibn Abī Saʻīd al-Jamālī maʻrūf bih Yazdī. Yazdī, al-Muṭahhar ibn Muḥammad, fl. 1184. [S.l : s.n., 16–?]. This is a natural history treatise that is illuminated with detailed multicolored illustrations of animals, birds, plants, stones and humans. Yale-SOAS Islamic Manuscript Gallery
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