Fantasy and Myth

By Margaret Ann Zaho, PhD,

Visiting Instructor, UCF Art Department

This Bestiarium is a 12th century English example that contains 130 miniatures in 105 pages, each executed on richly gilded backgrounds. The animals, some real like the Lion, and some fictive like the Phoenix, illustrate the text which provides a description of the animal as well as a Christian moralizing interpretation. Images include a crocodile with bird feet and a panther with horns. This example of a Bestiary is one of best surviving examples of its type in the world.

Bestiarium

Main - About the Exhibit - Illuminated Manuscripts - Love, Faith, and Myth

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