Secrets de l’histoire naturelle (Secrets of Natural History)

The Livre des merveilles du monde (The Wonders of the World), which is also known under the title Secrets de l’histoire naturelle (Secrets of Natural History), is a compilation of geographical and mythological themes, written by an anonymous author at the turn of the fifteenth century, between 1371 and 1428. Composed of two parts, the book describes fifty-six countries or regions and then develops into a thematic encyclopaedia on the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms, the four elements, and the wonders of human intelligence. The first part is the longer of the two, and the chapters are more or less in alphabetical order—from Africa to Ululand. The variable length of the chapters may indicate an increased interest in the countries in the Mediterranean basin.

During the Middle Ages, accounts of the travels of diplomats, merchants, and missionaries who travelled to the Holy Land considerably increased knowledge about the world, but this compilation continued to represent the East as a place full of wonders. On the eve of the Great Discoveries, the East was still the ‘magical and dreamlike place’[1] that Jacques Le Goff describes in his book. This compilation depicts the accounts and exotic bestiaries gleaned in the Bible, and in ancient and medieval literature[2].

This book is more than just a scientific work—it was produced for a well-off and cultivated readership and fired the reader's imagination. The use of exempla does, however, emphasize the moralistic nature of these accounts. Of the four illustrated manuscripts[3] that exist of the book, only the example in the Pierpont Morgan Library contains a preface that is partly written in the first person. The author, probably a cleric, sets out his aims: ‘to enable readers to know God through the “wonders” of creation on earth’.

The example held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (reference: Fr 22971), is the most recent work in the series and was painted in around 1480. There is a long description of Egypt, in which it is described as a wonderful and dangerous country. In Lower Egypt, there are hippopotami and crocodiles ‘that are many-headed and wary of the country’s inhabitants’, and in Upper Egypt there are many wild and venomous animals: ‘lions, leopards, Paridae, snakes and basilisks, dragons, serpents, and cobras’. The author also describes the terrible catoblepas (mythical creature with the body of a bull and the head of a hog): a mid-sized creature that is weak and sluggish, and whose gaze would be fatal if God hadn’t given him a head so heavy that he can’t raise it.

The illuminator, inspired by the text, also expresses his culture. As in many medieval bestiaries, he gives the dangerous crocodile[4] a wolf’s head. Also depicted is a unicorn, which magically purifies the Nile by dipping its horn into the water when drinking. The goat has a white spotted coat, and a dragon, a leopard, two ibises and two cobras are roaming nearby.

This world is rendered without illusionary effects or realism, but particular attention has been paid to the precision of the lines and contours. The contrast of the colours accentuates the clarity of the layered planes: the dense green vegetation stands out against the grey rocks. Following Paul Durrieu’s identification of the artist, François Avril also identified Robinet Testard as the author of the painted miniatures in around 1480. Robinet Testard is known to have worked as an independent illuminator in Poitiers from 1471. He attracted the attention of Charles de Valois-Orléans, comte d'Angoulême, who made him a member of his court in Cognac and offered him the honorary title of valet-de-chambre. After the king’s death, his widow, Louise Of Savoy, employed the painter, who was still painting in the Gothic style during the Renaissance. Robinet Testard is last mentioned in 1531 in the record of awards granted by Francis I—king of France (1515–47), the first of five monarchs of the Angoulême branch of the House of Valois—to the various members of his mother’s House.

[2] Pliny the Elder and Solinus are the most quoted authors, but the author also refers to texts by Saint Isidore of Seville and Odoric de Pordenone, a Franciscan monk who wrote an account of his travels in India and Java in his Chemin de pérégrination. 

[3] Bibliothèque nationale de France Fr. (Paris) 1377–1379; Paris, coll. part.; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, M. 461; Bibl. nat., Paris, Fr 22971.

[4] University Library, Cambridge (Ms. Ii, 4, 26).