2-634-510 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Torments of Hell', c1185 (1906). Hortus deliciarum (Garden of Delights) is a medieval manuscript compiled by Herrad of Landsberg at the Hohenburg Abbey in Alsace. It was an illuminated encyclopedia, begun in 1167 as a pedagogical tool for young novices at the convent. It is the first encyclopedia that was evidently written by a woman. It was finished in 1185, and was one of the most celebrated illuminated manuscripts of the period. In 1870, the manuscript was burnt and destroyed when the library housing it in Strasbourg was bombarded during the siege of the city in the Franco-Prussian War. From Medieval London, Vol. II - Ecclesiastical by Sir Walter Besant. [Adam & Charles Black, London, 1906]