ALTERNATIVE TITLES – Bestiario di Peterborough – Peterborough Bestiary – Bestiaire de Peterborough – Bestiarium aus Peterborough.
FEATURES – Codex on parchment, 347 x 231 mm, 22 folios.
BINDING – In the 16th century the Peterborough Bestiary was trimmed and bound with a psalter and the Chronicon Petroburgense (a chronicle of England and Peterborough Abbey).
ORIGIN – United Kingdom (Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew).
CHRONOLOGY – Early 14th century (1300-1310).
PATRONAGE – The patron of the manuscript is unknown, but we can suppose that the Peterborough Abbey commissioned it.
SUBSEQUENT OWNERS – After the Suppression of the monasteries (the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England), the Peterborough Bestiary became part of the private collection of Matthew Parker. In 1574 he donated the codex to the Parker Library in the Corpus Christi College at Cambridge.
CURRENT LOCATION – Cambridge, Parker Library in the Corpus Christi College.
GENRE – Christianity, Bestiaries.
LANGUAGE – Latin and French.
SCRIPT – Gothic.
DECORATION – 101 framed in-text miniatures, 108 decorated initials, drolleries and marginalia.
STYLE – Gothic.
EXTERNAL LINKS – Stanford Libraries (digitized version and description of the Ms. 53).

Data sheet: Illuminated Facsimiles

Psalterium; Bestiarium; Officium defunctorum

FACSIMILE EDITION

Full-size color reproduction of the entire original document. The facsimile reproduces as close as possible the codicological characteristics of the original document. The binding might not correspond to that of the original document as it appears at the present moment.

Publisher – Salerno Editrice (Rome, 2004). In co-edition with Faksimile Verlag (Lucerne/Munich, 2004) and Yushodo Co. (Tokyo, 2004).
Series – Codices Mirabiles (n. 5).
Limited edition – 1480 copies.
Commentary – De Hamel, Christopher; Freeman Sandler, Lucy; Marucci, Valerio.
Slipcase – Issued in a plexiglass case.
ISBN – 978-88-8402-439-8.

Copyright photos: Salerno Editrice