This is a special book from the early Middle Ages (France, 9th century).
Not only does it contain a high volume of very attractive images, but
these images are also not what you would expect: they are drawn, as it
were, with words. They illustrate Cicero’s Aratea, a work of
astronomy. Each animal represents a constellation and the written words
in them are taken from an explanatory text by Hyginus (his Astronomica).
His words are crucial for these images because the drawings would not
exist without them. It is not often in medieval books that image and
text have such a symbiotic relationship, each depending on the other for
its very existence.
Image and text from
Erik Kwakkel's
excellent blog post. At the link you will find five additional images
of similarly-illustrated animals, and links to the digitized primary
source and related materials.
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