5 results
General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex. Book XI: Natural Things
Historia general de las cosas de nueva España (General history of the things of New Spain) is an encyclopedic work about the people and culture of central Mexico compiled by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590), a Franciscan missionary who arrived in Mexico in 1529, eight years after completion of the Spanish conquest by Hernan Cortés. Commonly referred to as the Florentine Codex, the manuscript consists of 12 books devoted to different topics. Book XI, the longest in the codex, is a treatise on natural history. Following the traditional division ...
Contributed by
Medicea Laurenziana Library, Florence
A Book Concerning the Nature of Things. Natural Questions in Seven Books
Under the influence of Italian humanism and of his book-collector tutor János Vitéz, the Archbishop of Esztergom, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1443–1490) developed a passion for books and learning. Elected king of Hungary in 1458 at the age of 14, Matthias won great acclaim for his battles against the Ottoman Turks and his patronage of learning and science. He created the Bibliotheca Corviniana, in its day one of Europe’s finest libraries. After his death, and especially after the conquest of Buda by the Turks in 1541, the library ...
Contributed by
Bavarian State Library
Through Unknown African Countries: the First Expedition from Somaliland to Lake Rudolf
A. Donaldson Smith was an American medical doctor and amateur big-game hunter who, in 1894-95, undertook an 18-month expedition from Berbera, Somalia (then British Somaliland) to Lake Turkana (then Lake Rudolf) in Kenya. He explored the headwaters of the Shabeelle River in Ethiopia and, on his return journey, descended the Tana River to the Kenyan coast. This book is his account of the expedition. Its appendices contain detailed descriptions and illustrations of the fishes, spiders and scorpions, moths, geological specimens, fossils, plants, and ethnographic objects collected on the expedition. Also ...
Contributed by
Library of Congress
About the Natural History of the Indies
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1478–1557) was one of the most important early chroniclers of the Spanish presence in the Americas. Born in Madrid of noble parents from Asturias, at age 12 he became a page to the Duke of Villahermosa. He witnessed the surrender of Granada and, in 1492, entered the service of Prince Don Juan I, whose death in 1497 changed the path of his life. After living several years in Italy, Oviedo returned to Spain around 1505 and, from then onward, began traveling between the Iberian Peninsula ...
Contributed by
National Library of Spain
Farah’s Encyclopedia of Nature
This Persian manuscript contains the text and accompanying illustrations of Faraḥ nāmah (Farah’s encyclopedia of nature), also known by the title Ajayib al-dunya (Wonders of the world). The work is a treatise on natural history by al-Muṭahhar ibn Muḥammad al-Yazdi (flourished circa 1184). The manuscript was copied in the 17th century in a large Taliq script, and is illuminated with detailed multicolored illustrations of animals, birds, plants, rocks, and humans. Persian miniature painting was becoming a fine art genre in the 12th–13th centuries, and portrayal of the ...
Contributed by
Yale University Library