Medieval bestiaries describe the behavioral characteristics of each animal—often fanciful and surprising—and give a moral interpretation. To today's reader, they are an inexhaustible source of entertainment and curiosity: the tiger is said to be so fond of mirroring itself that hunters use mirrors to distract it and steal its cubs, and the beaver, which tears off its testicles with its teeth and throws them on the ground to avoid being killed by hunters, who only want that part. In addition, they are a magnificent entry into the medieval world. The list of animals, 45 in this bestiary, also includes fantastic creatures such as the unicorn (“one of the cruelest beasts there is”) or the phoenix. At the end of the volume the reader will find a fold with sixteen beautiful medieval miniatures illustrating various animals. The preachers, in order to give didactic and at the same time attractive examples to the Christians, used the bestiaries in their sermons, which everyone heard every day. In this way, the features of each animal became part of the popular imagination, and writers, in their works, used these shared references. Authors such as Ausiàs March, Jaume Roig, Joan Roís de Corella or Saint Vicent Ferrer were nourished by bestiaries, as exemplified in the introduction to the volume. - [Publisher]

Language: Catalan

Locators: ISBN: 978-84-7226-905-7