The Lion and the porcupine in Villard de Honecourts Sketchbook seem also to be based on the corresponding picture in a copy of the Liber Floridus [Ghent, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS 92, fol. 56v]. That a picture with such strong appeal could be changed, seemingly so radically, from its original side view to a foreshortened frontal view is not without analogy and precedent in the first half of the 13th century, a period in which the problems of three-dimensional interpretations of a given subject or a well-established composition were eagerly explored and exploited. The fact that Villard labeled in his sketchbook the lion com on le voit par devant and contrefais al vif - and this was very well possible for lions were then kept and seen in menageries - only reveals how strongly Lambert of Saint-Omers image of the Lion and Pig must have persisted into the 13th century. - [Author]

Language: English