A compilation of the miraculous, unexplained and extraordinary, Pierre Boaistuau’s bestseller Histoires Prodigieuses is credited as the origin of the “strange tales” genre in the second half of the 16th century. Spanning forty illustrated chapters, it was a repository of natural wonders, natural disasters and freaks of nature; of the monstrous, marvelous and supernatural, accompanied by Boaistuau’s edifying observations. This leaf is reproduced from the original handwritten and illuminated manuscript presented to Queen Elizabeth I, which formed the basis for later print editions.
Image by the Wellcome Library, London (CC BY 4.0).
