A small snake in Antiquity, a hybrid animal in the Middle Ages or a giant monster with a murderous gaze in contemporary fantasy, the basilisk continues to reinvent itself. These mutations bear witness to the evolutions and recreations of the visual and symbolic imagination which have marked its history throughout the centuries. Faced with the protean nature and unstable iconography of the basil, Latin bestiaries offer a corpus that allows us to understand its symbolism and iconography. Bestiaries enjoyed great success during the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, in the British Isles and on the European continent. This literary genre is heir to ancient zoology and the exegetical tradition of paleo-Christian writings, thus offering an original theological discourse rich in meaning. It will therefore be important for us to understand the formation and processes that underlie the symbolic evolution and iconography of the basil, to identify the different stages that mark its history and contributed to forging its image in the medieval period. To do this, it is necessary to identify the multiple symbolic components of the basil, at the very origin of the medieval monster, through ancient pagan literature, the Old Testament corpus and patristics. This analysis aims to identify the complex and tangled networks which govern the symbolism of the basil in the writings of the High Middle Ages in order to highlight the permanences and mutations which began during the twelfth century, in particular through the different families of Latin bestiaries. Finally, the iconographic analysis of the manuscripts will make it possible to determine the criteria inherent to the physiognomy of the basil and to define how its presentation contributes to the exaltation of its diabolical nature. - [Author]

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978-2-493209-07-8; DOI: 10.4000/books.irht.802