Imagem do Mundo: Gossouin de Metz 1245

The French author's text encompasses the branches of geographical, zoological, botanical, mineralogical and astronomical knowledge, and can be linked to what were medieval encyclopedias, which often emerged through, or linked to, the development and creation of universities, mostly linked to the Church, in the 12th and 13th centuries, all over Europe, and which combined the principles of interpreting reality and acting on it, on which Greco-Roman culture was inspired, presupposing an entirely different conception between the sacred and the profane, between nature and culture, between man and society.

Margarida Santos Alpalhão provides readers with a careful edition and translation from the French original, which is the result of the in-depth research that went into the study of manuscript 619, which came from the Bookshop of the Convent of Santa Cruz in Coimbra and has been in the Municipal Public Library of Porto since 1834, adding to the textual universe of the work, of great richness and complexity, a vast reflection on medieval encyclopedism.

As well as keeping the original text together with its Portuguese translation, the book also contains a reproduction of illuminations from this manuscript.