![]() Look at this beautiful manicule-dog that explains the text of Aristotle to a bunny: These pointing hands feature very often arms attached, or consist of fully figures, hybrides creatures or animals. 136rīut non only monsters and exotic creatures… After the 12th century it was usual to put in the margins quite a few maniculae or “little hands”, consisting of a hand (sometimes very elaborate and realistic) with an extended finger to indicate a significant passage of the text. New York, The Morgan Library, MS M.102, fol. Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. ![]() About the mythological people called Monopods (that means «one-foot») or also Sciapods («shadow-foot»), Pliny the Elder says they have a single, enormous foot and are used to lie on their backs during the time of the heat and protect themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet (Nat. In the Ctesias’ History of India, Cynocephali are described as men with dogs’ heads who speak no language, but bark like dogs and live for a very long time, sometimes 200 years. On the existence of Cynocephali in India, the main source for us is the Greek physician Ctesias of Cnidus, but also Marco Polo mentions them when he describes his travel to the island of Angamanain. Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia tells us that the Blemmyae had no head, but had the face on their chest and lived somewhere in Africa. In the Middle Ages many monsters with physical deformities and exotic names (perhaps signifying savagery of non-Christian people) were thought to live on faraway lands, especially the three categories of Blemmyae, Cynocephali and Sciapods. London, British Library, MS Add 42130, fol. London, British Library, MS Add 42130 fol. 79rĪ wife beating her husband kneeling with her distaff: 29r–60v): misogyny or something else? Here are some funny images of this amazing Psalter: It is one of the most intriguing examples of the manuscripts containing illustrations of the English medieval daily life and of a large number of figures of human-animal hybrids: dancers, musicians, wrestlers and a wife beating her husband kneeling with her distaff in a sequence of images of martyrs (fols. The contrast between solemn religious texts and playful and provocative creatures painted in the margins is particularly evident in the well known Luttrell Psalter, commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, Lord of the Manor of Irnham in Lincolnshire, and probably written in the first half of the 14th century. It is known that artists and scribes used marginalia for many purposes: they personalized the manuscript for the owner, added levity and irony to the text or represented funny stories in order to make it more interesting yet, but monsters were especially used to express the ugliness of sin and thus they were often portrayed as physically deformed. These amazing and wonderful creatures illustrate not only deluxe bestiaries but surprisingly also many books of prayers, psalters and even the Bible, where the presence of these colourful illustrations appears to be in contrast to the seriousness of the text. Some examples of such early works (chivalric or not) include: The Filocolo by Giovanni Boccaccio from 1335/6 (first novel in Italian) Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta again by Boccaccio from 1343/4 (first psychological novel in the West) Le Mort d'Arthur by Thomas Malory from the 1470's (first novel in English) and other such works.Īlso, other countries developed novels - see for example Lady Murasaki's genius Tale of Genji from Heian Japan (early 11th century).Unicorns, dragons, sirens, griffins, skiapodes, blemmyae, cynocephali and many others fabulous beasts or strange hybrid creatures populate the margins of illuminated medieval manuscripts. Most of the books written in prose were chivalric romances (aka, the kind of books where the brave knight rescues the damsel in distress), which were early signs of what would evolve into the modern form. However, modern novels grew out of medieval traditions, and there are some medieval books we can consider "novels." In the early 13th century, there was a shift from poetry towards prose writing. ![]() In fact, the first "modern novel" was Don Quixote published in 1605, two centuries after the Middle Ages! There are some examples of "novels" dating from the Roman era however, these were very different than ones you would find in modern bookstores. That's a really cool question! Unfortunately, it's also kinda hard to answer, because the genre known as a "novel" has greatly evolved throughout time.
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