All across the Mediterranean, birds, some recognizable, others not, appear carved into stone, painted across walls, traced into ceilings and illustrated in the pages of illuminated manuscripts.

From the third century onward, texts such as the Physiologus, and medieval bestiaries, assembled narratives and fantastical illustrations about animals, some coming from observation and others reinterpreted from Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythologies, and ancient writings. These manuscripts imbued the natural world with allegorical meaning, believing that the secrets of mankind were somehow embedded in animal behavior.

The pelican feeds its young with its own life- blood, sacrificing its life for theirs. The caladrius absorbs or rejects illness by glancing toward or away from the infirm. It flies near the sun and the disease is burned, releasing both the patient and the bird from the disease’s deadly consequences.

Pigeons and doves exist side by side with creatures that only exist in the imagination, and no clear boundary separates one from the other, passing these stories to the next generation.

Observation is filtered through belief, and belief solidifies into form resembling our own ideas.