PHOENIX
Fenix
A verified image witness for the phoenix. The University of Aberdeen’s folio commentary adds a clue about how the page was made: there is pouncing around the bird and the flames.
Workshop note: the university’s f.56r commentary records pouncing around the bird and flames. Public-domain faithful reproduction via Wikimedia Commons.
ISIDORE / ETYMOLOGY
ISIDORE XII.7.22. The phoenix’s entry sits in Book XII, De animalibus, section 7, De avibus. The Latin is linked under Sources. No transcription or translation is published on this page.
EARLIER SOURCES / PHYSIOLOGUS
NO PHYSIOLOGUS LAYER CLAIMED. This site does not treat “Physiologus” as one fixed text, and the version behind the Aberdeen phoenix has not been identified.
LATER ALLEGORY / MANUSCRIPT WITNESSES
The Aberdeen MS 24 witness appears above, and the university’s folio page is linked under Sources. No other witness is shown. A later manuscript picture is not an illustration of Isidore’s seventh-century text.
HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW
Isidore’s phoenix is at XII.7.22, checked in the LacusCurtius Lindsay text. No transcription, translation or Physiologus layer is published here.
University of Aberdeen · MS 24 · Aberdeen Bestiary · approx. c. 1200. Catalogue and image witness verified for this record.
Folio 56r detail (phoenix). Public-domain faithful reproduction on Wikimedia Commons. The University of Aberdeen’s f.56r commentary notes pouncing.
DIGITAL FACSIMILE of the selected folio (University of Aberdeen MS 24). The file presented is the Wikimedia Commons reproduction.
The specific image file used here is a Wikimedia Commons reproduction marked public domain. This is not a blanket University of Aberdeen institutional reuse determination. Institutional terms may apply to other views of the same manuscript.
The transmission stack, status labels, and interface framing are authored by Make It Believable. They are not historical testimony.
WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW YET
- Which Physiologus version, if any, lies behind the Aberdeen phoenix.
- Which other manuscripts carry the phoenix, and on what terms their images can be reused.
