Fantastic journey to the three natural kingdoms

A finely illustrated trilogy, inspired by the tradition of medieval bestiaries but reaching to the present day, transporting the reader on a journey suspended between art and science.

A three-stage journey to discover the depiction of the three natural kingdoms, which demonstrates how man’s fascination with the treasures of the natural world has always been steeped in imagination and mysticism, giving rise to myths and legends in which science is mixed with the fantastic.

HERBARIA. Plants, modern herbaria and floras is the first volume: a walk through the extraordinary world of herbaria, the product of the vision of artists, scientists, architects, men of letters, graphic designers and illustrators, from the Middle Ages to the present day. A book that testifies to how the desire to read, classify and make sense of nature is one of the most powerful and pervasive instincts in human history. Not just tools for the transmission of scientific culture, herbaria have told the story of man’s relationship with nature over time, often redefining its boundaries and pushing, in some cases, into fantasy and visionary territories related to the powers that were attributed to herbs.

The journey continues by tracing the representation of the animal world from antiquity to the present day: the second volume, BESTIARY. Fantastic, monstrous and allegorical animals shows animals as imaginary beings produced by the human mind, mixing traits and characteristics of different species. The hybridization of humans and animals is as old as art and religion has always stimulated human imagination, just think of Egyptian deities, figures from Greek mythology or the masterpieces of visionary artists such as Hieronymus Bosch and Enrico Baj.

MINERALIA. Minerals, crystals and alchemical lapidaries concludes this fantastic journey into the three kingdoms of nature with a foray into the world of minerals. The protagonists are elements that are only seemingly inanimate, actually endowed with great structural vitality: minerals, precious gems, but also shells, corals, and skeletons reveal a world in which the geometry and mathematics of nature express all their power and fascination.

International awards and co-editions

The three volumes were created and edited by Domitilla Dardi, a design historian and curator. The research and selection of images was impressive, and some of them were created ad hoc by artists and designers. The art direction of all volumes is by studio FM Milano, which took care of the layout and graphic identity: a project awarded the Silver Medal in the Book Layout category at the European Design Awards for the volume HERBARIA.

HERBARIA has been published in Spanish and German. HERBARIA, BESTIARIA, MINERALIA will be published in French and Chinese in 2025.