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examining the problem. What is relevant is the correspondence of the
method of composition of the OIP to the one adopted in the
contemporary Bestiary production, although the final results are far
from identical. The gieda chapter, for instance, has a structure which,
for its fragmentariness, is apparendy more similar to a distinctio62 than
to a Besdary chapter. This distincdve aspect may be ascribed to the
purpose for which the OIP was written. Through the elements
available, what its real nature was, is only a matter for conjecture. But
we cannot exclude that it, as other Physiologus or Bestiary texts, was
meant to be used as a basis for preparing sermons63 or as a school-
book64. What can be said with confidence is that it circulated widely, as
we deduce from the pricked oudines of some of its illuminations65
which prove that they were a model for other pictorial representations.
This supposition seems to be confirmed by the conservative pictorial
patterns of the 18th century Icelandic Bestiary, Dublin Trinity College,
Ms. L.2.3366 which shows some illustrations bearing a striking similar-
ity to the ones of the OIP. I refer for instance, to the simia (p. 10), the
vultur (p. 53), the aspedo (p. 55) and the aspides (p. 60). It would be rash
62 On distinctiones see R. H. & M. A. Rouse, ‘Biblical disrinctions in the Thirteenth
Century’, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Letteraire du Moyen Age, 41, 1974, pp.
27-37.
63 On the subject see: J. Morson, ‘The English Cistercians and the Bestiary’, The John
Rylands Library, 39,1956, pp. 146-70; C. Segre, Li Bestiaires d’Amours di Maistre Richart
deFornival, E UResponse du Bestiaire, Milano-Napoli 1957, p. IX, note 1;X. Muratova, ‘I
Manoscritti miniati del Bestiario Medievale: origine, formazione e sviluppo dei cicli di
illustrazioni. I Bestiari miniati in Inghilterra nei secoli XII-XIV’, L’uomo di fronte al
mondo animale nell’alto Medioevo, op. cit, II, 1319-62, at 1329 and 1341.
64 For the use of Physiologus as a school-book of the Trivium,d. R. B. C. Huygens (ed.),
Accessus ad Auctores, 2nd ed., Leiden 1970, p. 26: ‘Iste libellus intitulatur Phisiologus,
Phisis id est grece, latine natura, logos grece, latine sermo, inde Phisiologus id est
naturalis sermo. Materia eius sunt animalia quae introducuntur in eo, intentio eius est
delectare in animalibus et prodesse in figuris, utilitas est ut naturas et figuras animalium
cognoscamus. Phisicae supponitur quia de naturis animalium tractat’. See also N. Hen-
kel, Studien zum Physiologus im Mittelalter, Tubingen 1976, pp. 38-39,53-58,112-13 and
P. T. Eden, Theobaldi Physiologus, Leiden und Koln 1972, p. 10.
65 On this technique of reproduction see: S. A. Ives and H. Lehmann-Haupt, An
English lJth century Bestiary. A New Discovery in the Technique of Medieval Illumination,
New York 1942, p. 35; Yapp, A New Look, p. 3; Muratova, I Manoscritti miniati, pp. 1356-
57.
66 O. Skulerud, Catalogue of Norse Manuscripts in Edinburgh, Dublin and Manchester,
Kristiania 1918, p. 50.