Animals in the manuscripts of South-West France in the 14th century

Abstract

This article examines the place of the animal in the illuminated manuscripts produced during the 14th century and associated with the southwestern quarter of France. In a purely decorative role, there is a predilection for waders and dragons, particularly used in the illumination of Toulouse in the first half of the 14th century. The low diversity of animal species represented is compensated for by a few separate cases which bear witness to the importation of northern marginalia into certain productions associated with South-West France: at the beginning of the century, with two workshops working respectively in the pope's entourage. Clement V and the Abbe Augier de Cogeux; then around 1350 with two manuscripts (Paris, BnF, Latin 3313A and Paris, Biblitohèque Sainte-Geneviève, ms. 143) which, despite the local ties of their sponsors, are nevertheless closely linked to Avignon production. Finally, two manuscripts produced around 1350 prove that the region participates in the beginnings of the pictorial naturalism that characterizes the century: in a pontifical partly illuminated by a Catalan artist (Narbonne, Treasure of the Cathedral, ms. 2) and in an Occitan translation of the Livre des propriétés des choses (Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, ms. 1029).