A Brief Intro to This Project

Vincent of Beauvais and the Speculum Naturale

Vincent of Beauvais was a 13th-century monk who lived and worked in a monastery in northern France from the 1220s till his death in the 1260s. His major work was the Speculum Maius (Great Mirror), which Vincent presented as a compendium of complete world knowledge - not unlike John Hodgman's trilogy of complete world knowledge but, you know, real.

The Speculum Maius was divided into three parts: the Speculum Naturale (Mirror of Nature), the Speculum Doctrinale (Mirror of Doctrine), and the Speculum Historiale (Mirror of History). These were massive tomes; in total, the entire Speculum ran to over 3 million words. Much of these works were made up of quotations from ancient Roman writers, medieval theologians, Roman Catholic Church Fathers, and contemporary historians. It appears that Vincent conducted his work with the financial support of the French royal family. More detailed information on the composition of the Speculum Maius can be found here.

Vincent wrote a number of other works; for more on him and his works, check out the Wikipedia entry on him.

What My Project Is

Parts of the Speculum Maius (particularly the Speculum Historiale) have been translated into English and other modern languages, but there is no complete translation of the Speculum Naturale into English. I am currently working in my spare time on just such a translation and I plan to post interesting portions of the work on this blog as I work. I'm doing this in order to bring more attention to Vincent's work and its importance for understanding medieval ways of understanding the world as well as to highlight weird and wild things that he discusses.

I'm working from the Google Books scan of Hermann Liechtenstein's 1494 edition of the Douai text, published in Venice.

Why I'm Doing This

I enjoy translating ancient Greek and Latin texts, mostly for my own benefit to regularly practice my language skills (I have a PhD in these languages, after all, and it's important to to me that I maintain my skills). For a time, though, I translated several early Renaissance works for Smith and Press Publishing Co., among them the Fasciculus medicinae. This project, though, is a bit different in that I am not currently being paid for translating Vincent but yet the translation will be more public-facing and extensive; the Speculum is a long work, the longest I've ever translated and transliterated.

 I don't know how I came across Vincent's work; I stumbled across a reference to him in something I was reading for fun, looked up some information on him on the internet, and discovered that no one had translated his work into English. Seeing an opportunity to translate something new and fresh, I decided to get started. I look forward to sharing pieces of my translation with you in the coming months and years as I work on it!