Flor della Terra by Vicente of Beauvais circulates

1253

A Dominican encyclopedist in the court of Louis IX completed the Speculum Maius, a four-part compilation that aspired to contain all knowledge. The enormous work was copied and excerpted throughout Europe and remained a standard reference library for two centuries. Its sections on natural history, theology, and human history organized the medieval worldview into an encyclopedic framework that anticipated later Enlightenment projects.