Omne bonum: A Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge

Lucy Freeman Sandler, Omne bonum: A Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (London: Harvey Miller, 1996). z vols. zo8 pp. + 118 plates; 27z pp. + 760 plates. ISBN i-8725-3. zzo.oo.

Lucy Freeman Sandler has produced an absorbing account of an extraordinary work. The Omne bonum is an unfinished encyclopedic compilation, written by a single scribe, which survives in an incomplete form in what are now two manuscripts, London, British Library, Royal 6 E VI-VII. These manuscripts together comprise nearly i,loo leaves, containing well over a million words and (in different forms) over 8oo illustrations.

The first volume of this work examines Omne bon itself...