Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary – Tudor Pattern Book

Created for Juan de Austria, the victor of the naval battle of Lepanto: the only surviving medieval bestiary written in Spanish, furnished with 370 peculiar miniatures of gruesome sea monsters and other animals

An encyclopedia of nature for the King of Spain: the extraordinary textbook and reference work for Philip II with no less than 218 naturalistic representations of plants and animals

Petrus Candidus' famous natural history for the animal-loving Marquis of Mantua: a lexical masterpiece of humanism, subsequently enriched with almost 500 captivating, naturalistic depictions of animals

Botanical illustrations as inspiration for later artworks and patterns for fine embroidery: 36 elaborately colored plates by Maria Sibylla Merian with individual flowers, but also wreaths, bunches of flowers and bouquets

From a biblical chronology to British monarchs to nearly 100 pages of embroidery designs: a sumptuous anthology serves as a fascinating panopticon of everyday life in the 16th century