Note 827 — Chapter XLVIII
Reading edition
De naturis rerum, II, 21. In an illustrated 13th century MS of the vernacular Romance of Alexander three pictures are devoted to his submarine. CU Trinity 1446, 1250 A. D., fol. 27r, “Coment Alisandre vesqui suz les ewes; a covered ship with windows under green water, Alexander and three men in it; fol. 27v, Des nefs ke sont apelees colifas; a similar ship in the water, no one visible in it; Coment Alisandre encercha la nature de pessons; Alexander and two men in the ship, fish and mermaid below.” I have quoted James’ description of the MS (III, 488).
See also Lacroix, Science and Literature in the Middle Ages, 1878, Fig. 87, p. 119, for Alexander descending to the bottom of the sea in a glass cask, from a thirteenth century MS, Brussels 11040.