Modern encyclopedias are inconceivable without photographs, drawings, and diagrams, but among medieval works that have been called encyclopedias some of the most important were rarely, if ever, illustrated, for example, Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, Bartholomaeus Anglicus's De proprietatibus rerum and Vincent de Beauvais's Speculum maius. Some medieval encyclopedias however were designed from the outset to be illustrated. Among these is James le Palmer's autograph Omne bonum, compiled in London beginning ca. 1360, but only half completed by James's death in 1315. Even in its incomplete state it has about 1100 large-size folios, 1,700,000 words, and over 800 illustrations, and since James le Palmer was the compiler as well as the scribe and graphic designer of the work, it is certain that all 800 pictures were planned from the beginning. James may have expected his vast and ambitious encyclopedia to be circulated, but with the book only half finished, it remained unique, its fate unknown until it entered the royal library of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century. - [Author]

Language: German