Abstract
MS Fran?ais 2810 of the Biblioth?que Nationale de France is a compilation of European travel literature of the East that contains miniature paintings of fabulous peoples and monstrous creatures in the East. This sumptuous illuminated manuscript, also known as the Livre des merveilles, that is, Book of Wonders, was first created as an object of art for medieval French princes in the early fifteenth century. And its commission by a French prince and gifting to another prince at a tumultuous time in French history tell a story of the politics of prized art between the lords of France in the Middle Ages. Known for “its exotic and fanciful subjects” in the miniature representations of the East, and mined for such exotic images in modern references to medieval European perceptions of the East, this book is a prime example of the culture of the book as a luxury and privilege for the European elite in the Middle Ages. My essay is a meditation on the way material culture, as embodied in the Merveilles, displays princely power and the way this power projects itself onto the exotic East in the miniature art of the manuscript. The manuscript is as much peopled with fabulous creatures as it is with great lords in the East. As the images in the book reflect the tastes and interests of the medieval French nobility, my analysis of the miniature paintings of the Merveilles focuses on the way the exotic East expresses ideas of princely status and power.