Liber floridus

The Liber floridus is without question one of the most fascinating works of the Middle Ages. Remarkably, even the autograph of the “encyclopaedia” by the canon Lambert of Saint-Omer, completed around 1120, has survived - albeit not in its entirety. The contemporary copy from the second half of the 12th century, which is now kept in the Herzog August Library, is one of the oldest manuscripts to contain the entire work and impresses with its 52 illuminated pages, primarily showing numerous depictions of animals and plants as well as intricate diagrams. Particularly significant are the two double-page Mappae mundi, idiosyncratic world maps that link the medieval Christian world view with historical events, geography and cartography. The prelude is a pictorial cycle on the Christian idea of the Apocalypse. The eschatological focus of the work, i.e. the recurring theme of the end times, runs through all parts of the text and the images. Lambert thus embeds the natural historical, geographical and historical knowledge he has collected about the world in the context of the contemporary Christian idea of the world, its creation, its ages and its end.