Bibliography Detail
The Bestiary of Christ
New York: Parabola Books, 1991
"Just before the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe, a little-known Roman Catholic scholar published a compendium of animal symbolism that ranks with the greatest of the classical and medieval bestiaries. Louis Charbonneau-Lassay's Le Bestiaire du Christ (The Bestiary of Christ) was a tour de force that brought together the findings of a lifetime of scholarship in religious symbols gleaned from sources as diverse as ancient Egypt, classical Greece and Rome, early and medieval Christianity, the Kabbalah, Gnosticism, and various spiritual schools of the Near and Far East. ... By bringing together various schools of esoteric wisdom with Catholic thought and the folk legends of the French countryside around Loudun, where he lived and died, Charbonneau-Lassay created a stirring and lively account of the rich - and often contradictory - metaphorical meanings of real and imaginary animals." - publisher
Originally published in France (as Le Bestiaire du Christ) in 1940, in an edition of 500 copies, almost all of which were destroyed during the war. An edition of 2000 copies was published in Milan, based on the few surviving copies of the original. This English edition was translated and abriged by D. M. Dooling.
467 p., many black & white (woodcut) illustrations, bibliography
Language: English
ISBN: 0-930407-18-0; LCCN: 91040422; LC: BV168.A5C48131992; DDC: 24620
Last update December 6, 2021