THE BESTIARY: A MEDIEVAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANIMALS REAL & FANTASTIC | Curator of Manuscripts | Beth Morrison

Elizabeth "Beth" Morrison is a specialist in secular manuscript illumination & a senior curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California.  On this long distance episode we begin with how medieval people made & illuminated manuscripts from the animal hides to the bone black ink.  From there we focus in on a medieval genre of book called a Bestiary, an encyclopedia of animals real and fantastic. We discuss their strange, sometimes shocking, often moralistic Christian ideas about the likes of beavers & elephants, lions & crocodiles, unicorns & dragons, including tidbits on how to hunt a unicorn or the origin of the phrase, "having a monkey on one's back." From there, Beth describes the behind-the-scenes of museum art transportation as well as a past exhibition on the medieval life of women. We end on Beth's personal story about an extremely uncanny synchronicity. 

Check out the Getty Museum & Beth's book from the Getty's 2019 Bestiary exhibition.

Reading excerpt from The Bestiary: A Book of Beasts; Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century made and edited by T.H. White

Music provided by Sibil•la Ensemble

"Douce Dame Jolie"
Written by Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 – 1377)
Performed by Sibil•la Ensemble

"Codex Rossi: Che ti çova nascondere il bel volto" (c.1300's)
Written by Anonymous
Performed by Tímea Daradics
Courtesy of Sibil•la Ensemble

"Tels rit au main qui au soir pleure"
Written by Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 – 1377)
Performed by Kristia Michael
Courtesy of Sibil•la Ensemble

"O Rubor Sanguinis"
Written by Hildegard von Bingen (1098- 1179)
Performed by Sibil•la Ensemble

Reference Images:

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