The aim of the stories and illuminations was not to impart factual information or visual accuracy but rather to convey the wonder, variety, or hidden meaning found in the natural world. Some descriptions explained an animal’s Christian significance, such as the unicorn as a symbol for Christ, while others focused on physical characteristics. The selection and order of the beasts varied, though many bestiaries divided them into a hierarchy of land animals, birds, serpents, and sea creatures. Although the essential elements of the text and imagery associated with each creature remained largely consistent across manuscripts, the bestiary was not a standardized book. Medieval bestiaries contained anywhere from a few dozen to more than a hundred descriptions of animals, each accompanied by an iconic image. These works of art are a vibrant testimony to the power of the medieval imagination.Īdam Naming the Animals from Northumberland Bestiary (text in Latin), English, about 1250–1260, artist unknown. This exhibition, the first ever dedicated to the bestiary, gathers together more than a hundred works from institutions across the United States and Europe, including one-third of the world’s surviving illuminated bestiaries. The bestiary also provided the basis for the emerging field of natural history in the late Middle Ages and established a far-reaching legacy that still impacts the visual arts today.

The beasts and their tales became so familiar that they often escaped from the pages to inhabit an array of works of art, ranging from ivories and metalwork to stained glass and tapestries. The bestiary brought creatures both real and fantastic to life before the reader’s eyes, offering devotional inspiration Because medieval Christians understood every element of the world as a manifestation of God, the book largely focused on each animal’s religious meaning. A kind of encyclopedia of animals, the bestiary was among the most popular illuminated texts in northern Europe during the Middle Ages (about 500–1500).

Illuminated manuscript sea monster