Middle Ages; Seven Deadly Sins; Medieval; Visual Arts; Book Illumination; Monster; Female; Czech Lands

Liber depictus (cod. 370, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) is the mid-14th century pen-draw illustrated manuscript of Bohemian origin commissioned by the Rosenberg family for the Friar Minor and Poor Clares double monastery in Český Krumlov. The verso of folio 155 bares a unique so-called Frau Welt image in form of female monster with grotesque, deformed body symbolizing the spiritual and moral deformity; personifying the Seven Deadly Sins. The monster is depicted as a woman with animal features, following the iconographic tradition of associating the individual sins with animal body parts. Uniquely the image also reflects peccatum linguae, the sin of tongue described as the eighth sin by William Peraldus in his Summa de vitiis. The polysemantic image is analysed from multiple aspects: Visual – as the animal-like monster inspired by wider iconographic medieval tradition; Religious – as the antipode of cloistered; Moral – as the personification of eight sins; Hermetic – in the context of period alchemy ideas and tracts; Gender – as the example of visual distortion and manipulation with feminity and female body leading to monstrous forms.