Hortus Deliciarum facsimile Tab.01

The top register shows the Antichrist overseeing the execution of the faithful who are being cast into a furnace and beaten. The middle row depicts a long procession of penitents and secular judges in traditional medieval attire. The bottom register illustrates archetypes of social and moral transgression, including a possessed man, a merchant with scales, a thief holding a severed head, and a pair of lovers.

Compiled by Herrad of Landsberg, the Hortus Deliciarum was a monumental 12th-century encyclopedia designed to synthesize all human and divine knowledge into a visual 'Garden of Delights.' It serves as a vital bridge between late antique natural philosophy and the high medieval worldview, illustrating the cosmic struggle between virtue and vice that would later influence the structure of Renaissance memory systems and alchemical allegories.