TURTLE TORTOISE, IMAGE AND SYMBOL: THE WEST. 2 MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE EUROPE. (TURTLE TORTOISE, IMAGE AND SYMBOL. Book 1)

TURTLE TORTOISE, IMAGE & SYMBOL is published here in two volumes Volume One: THE WEST and Volume Two: THE EAST, and each volume is divided into four books. The WEST series is presented as a chronological sequence and the EAST series as individual studies of specific cultures. Together they constitute an in-depth coverage of the image and symbol of the turtle/tortoise throughout the world from the earliest times. Reference is made to specific artifacts, documents and monuments, works of science, literature and art, which may be viewed or consulted today in museums and public places, libraries and private collections, and the writing is intended for all readers with an interest in turtles, scientific or sentimental, for collectors of antiques, curios and objets d'art, and for everyone with an interest in the diversity of cultural history, in myth and religion, custom and art.

MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE EUROPE is the second of four books in the series TURTLE TORTOISE, IMAGE & SYMBOL: THE WEST. It consists of two chapters documenting the place of the turtle/tortoise in the evolution of ideas in European culture from Medieval Times to the Renaissance. The turtle/tortoise in early Christianity was not Greek but Egyptian, an image of demoniac evil and the benighted sinner. From the Tarasco of Tarascon to the Tartuca of Siena this character changed, the image transformed in classical device and emblem, to reappear with a Venus converted to housewife and saint.