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The Medieval Church · c. 1240

On the Properties of Things

De Proprietatibus Rerum

Bartholomaeus Anglicus · c. 1203–1272

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What it is

Nineteen books on God, angels, the human body, illness, air, birds, stones, colours, and smells, compiled by a friar teaching in Germany.

Why it lasted

The most popular encyclopaedia of the later Middle Ages, translated into six vernaculars and printed repeatedly after 1470.

Where to read it

Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.

These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.

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