Produced: Flanders, ca. 1350

Language: Middle Dutch

Author: Jacob van Maerlant
Illustrator: 
Scribe: Single

Binding: 16th-century brown leather, gilt
Media: Vellum
Script: Littera textualis

Folios: 164  Height: 27.8 cm   Width: 20.8 cm

Manuscript type: Single-author

Location: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Hague, Netherlands

Family: n/a

 |  | Folio 18r

Der Naturen Bloeme of Jacob van Maerlant (folios 38r-163r). The descriptions and images include a vast array of beasts, especially fish, that do not appear in most other works; many cannot be identified. These include oddities such as a fish with arms, and marine varieties of land animals (sea cow, sea stag, sea dog, sea horse, etc.). There is also a long series of illustrations of the monstrous human races said to live in the east. There are in all over 400 beasts.

The text and illustrations are for the most part very similar to those in KB, 76 E 4.

455 column miniatures, 34 schematic drawings, decorated initials with border decoration, penwork initials with pen-flourishes throughout.

Also contains a calendar (folios 1r-6v), two astronomical texts (folios 7r-28r), and astrological tables (folios 28r-37r).

Since 1937 on permanent loan from the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences), Amsterdam. Shelfmark sometimes recorded as Akad. XVI.

Additional description
Additional description

Digital facsimiles: Koninklijke Bibliotheek (partial)