Back to the Library
The Medieval Church · c. 1260
The Tree of Life
Lignum Vitae
Bonaventure · 1221–1274
Read elsewhere
What it is
Forty-eight meditations on the life, passion, and glory of Christ arranged as fruits on a tree, designed to be memorised and pictured.
Why it lasted
One of the most widely copied devotional texts of the later Middle Ages, and the direct source of a whole tradition in painting.
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.
Read next