Page 126 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

6_,

MARVELS OF THE EAST

from Liber de naturis rerum creatarum
1492
flemish
manuscript on vellum, 280 fols.
5
41 x 29.5 (16 Vs x ii /sj
references: Thomas Catipratensis 1973, 9#~99;
Wittkower 19770, 57• fa- 8o ' Derolez 1979,
168-175, no. 29; Oudenburg 1984, 281-282,
no. 166; Arnould 1991, forthcoming
Library of Sint-Baafskathedral, Ghent, MS. 15, /o/s.
117—2 r

Raphael de Mercatellis (1437-1508) is best known
today as a collector of richly illuminated manu-
scripts. Raphael, a scion of the Venetian family
Mercatelli di Mercatello, was probably born in
Bruges. After joining the Benedictine Abbey of
Saint Peter at Ghent, he studied theology in Paris.
He returned to Flanders to serve as abbot first of
Saint Peter's at Oudenburg, then of Saint Bavo's
in Ghent. While serving as abbot of Saint Bavo's,
Raphael built up a collection of manuscripts,
which were mostly works commissioned by him.
The present manuscript was made for him in
1492, as a Latin inscription records: "Hoc vol-
umen comparavit Raphael de Marcatellis, Dei
gratia episcopus Rosensis, abbas Sancti Bavonis
iuxta Gandavum, anno Domini 1492." It includes
a variety of texts: first a Liber de naturis rerum
creatarum (On the Nature of Created Things),
then a number of works mostly concerned with
the history of eastern Europe. These include Jor-
danes' De origine actibusque Getarum (On the
Origin and Deeds of the Thracians), Johannes de
Thwrocz' Chronica Hungarorum, and Aeneas
Sylvius Piccolomini's Historia bohemica.
The Liber de naturis rerum creatarum is
divided into seven books. Essentially it is a besti-
ary, which discusses among other things the
fabulous races of mankind; it is composed largely
of extracts from Thomas of Cantimpre's De
natura rerum (also called Liber de naturis rerum,
or On the Nature of Things). The verso of fol. i
and the recto of the next leaf illustrate fabulous
inhabitants of faraway countries, including dog-
headed people and cannibals (for the text illus-
trated, see Thomas of Cantimpre, De naturis
rerum, 3.2-3.5, in Thomas Cantipratensis 1973,
98-99). The first column of fol. 2r contains some
of the best known examples: a woman with one
eye in the middle of her forehead, a kind of
Cyclops; a "sciopod" resting on his back to shield
himself from the sun with his large foot (note
that here, as in other cases, "breeches" were
added later to cover the nudity of the figures); The Ghent manuscript can be linked to another, works are not closely related, but they clearly
a headless man with his face on his chest; an better known example that illustrates the same belong within the same tradition—as do some
apple-smeller who lives on the smell of apples text: Bruges, Stadsbibliotheek, MS 411 (see of the woodcuts that illustrate fabulous people
and would die from the effect of a bad odor; Oudenburg 1984, 281-282, no. 166; for an illus- in Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle
a man with six arms; and finally various exotic tration, Wittkower i977a, 57, fig. 80). The two (cat. 5). J.M.M.
dangerous women.

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