A NATURAL HISTORY PANOPTICON81peculiar epistemological spatialization in which animal semantics not
only substantially define the symbolic essence (signature) of animals in
flesh and bones, but in which they operate at a high intensity, acquiring
the ability to materialize mythical animals, such as the griffin or the uni-
corn. Through the Middle Ages, in the macrocosms or the microcosms,
animals appeared to be indissolubly enmeshed in the animal semantics
that materialized them as signifying, morally charged, symbolic objects
of religious value: the “medieval naturalist” was a theologian.^31 Medieval
bestiaries, dispersed across a number of different geographical and cul-
tural areas, established enunciative modalities that were subsequently
appropriated by the discipline of natural history.
In bestiaries, the newly established relationship among animals, text,
and illustration was initially an extremely f luid one. As argued by
FIGURE 2.2 “The Whale,” and “The Lion: a) eating ape; b) sparing prostrate; c) afraid
of a cock,” in The Ashmole Bestiary, unknown miniaturist, originally early thirteenth
century. Bodleian Library manuscript, Ashmole 1511, folio 86v. and folio 010r.