The New Medieval Bestiary

Medieval bestiaries were not scientific treatises in the sense we understand them today – they were a kind of encyclopedia created in an attempt to gather and systematize information about the surrounding world. The Latin word bestia means "beast", but such books could contain descriptions of birds, fish, insects, plants, and even minerals. Stories about animals could be accompanied by parables and even verses of a religious nature, as in those days people believed that all living things were merely a reflection of divine Power and Word. The New Medieval Bestiary brings together data from different worlds. This provides a wide range of representations that have developed about animals from ancient times to the present day. The creation of the book was based on the works of ancient authors who described the behaviors and habitats of animals with a high degree of accuracy. It also includes myths and legends of the Middle Ages. The author of the book is Elena Drozdova – a philologist and artist, a researcher of the Medieval era. All illustrations are in the style of medieval manuscripts from the 12th to 14th centuries.