The Tuscan Bestiary, also known as the Libro della natura degli animali. Most of the chapters are illustrated. The text is in three sections. The pages in the manuscript as it is now are out of order, with the additional animal chapters in the middle of the bestiary section, between the chapters on the viper and the sawfish..

1. The bestiary is on folio 1r-24v and continued on folio 51r-65v. There are 50 chapters.
2. The additional animal chapters are on folio 25r-50r. There are 41 chapters. This is one of three manuscripts to include this third part; the others are Wellcome Collection, MS.132 (Lo) and Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ital. 450 (P).
3. The fables are on folio 65v-74v. There are 15 chapters. There is no break in the text before the fables.

This Tuscan Bestiary manuscript is designated Ch1.

In the top-right hand written folio numbers, the folios are misnumbered after 39r, which is followed by 41r instead of 40r. No text appears to be missing, so the later numbering at the bottom of the page is correct.

Formerly M.VI.137 in the Biblioteca Chigiana in Rome, this manuscript was donated to the Vatican in 1923 by Mussolini.

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[From McKenzie, page 399] <.p>

The contents of this manuscript correspond to chapters in each of the three parts of Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ital. 450 [Par or P]. They are as follows: part of the proemio; De la natura de la Scimia; De la grande fede che lo leone moströ a uno Cavaliere che lo liberö; Sichome lo Rei di Francia si meravilliava del sto Leone; Uno pescatore; De la compagnia de li quattro tori, Uno arbore. Thus we have a chapter from the bestiary; two of the chapters in the last part; and the first three of the fables. Moreover, a comparison of the printed text with the text of Par shows such close relationship that it would not be difficult to assume that the one text was copied from the other; especially since Ch1 contains at least two of the chapters which are found elsewhere only in Par. ... the order of the first twenty-five chapters in Ch1 corresponds exactly to the order in Par.

Additional Descriptions

Additional description 1
Additional description 2 (page 398-399)
Additional description 3 (page 9-10)
Additional description 4 (column 903-904)

Editions and Facsimiles

Printed editions

Maximilian Goldstaub, Richard Wendriner, Ein Tosco-Venezianischer Bestiarius (1892)

Milton S. Garver, Kenneth McKenzie, Il Bestiario Toscano: secondo la lexione dei codice di Padua e di Roma (1912)

Davide Checchi, Libro della natura degli animali : bestiario toscano del secolo 13. : edizione critica (2020)

Digital facsimiles

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (very low quality monochrome images)