mgr Łukasz Krzyszczuk

Section 16.: Pulpit and power

In the Wrocław University Library, a 14th-century manuscript known as Liber de natura rerum is preserved under the shelf-mark R 174. Its author was Thomas of Cantimpré, a 13th-century Dominican. The opus vitae of this theologian, completed around 1245, was extremely popular in the Middle Ages. This is evidenced by the fact that over 220 manuscript copies of the work have survived to this day. On folio 51rb of the Wrocław codex, there is an entry titled De anabulla sequitur, and the illuminator, in depicting the animal described, portrayed a creature resembling an elephant, even though Thomas’s description does not in any way suggest that this mammal is being referred to. An analysis of the entry suggests that it actually describes a giraffe. The inclusion of a giraffe in an encyclopedia that served as a resource for medieval preachers in composing sermons is linked to the gifting of this animal to the courts of rulers such as Frederick II II Hohenstaufen, Manfred, and Alfonso X.