Vincent of Beauvais, born at Beauvais between 1184 and 1194, who died at his native place in 1264, an insatiable glutton for books (librorum helluo), say his contemporaries, collected and edited what he called _Bibliotheca Mundi, Speculum majus_ (Library of the World, an enlarged Mirror), an immense compilation, the first edition of which, published at Strasbourg in 1473, comprises ten volumes folio, and would comprise fifty or sixty volumes octavo.

The work contains three, and, according to some manuscripts, four parts, entitled _Speculum naturale_ (Mirror of Natural Science), _Speculum historiale_ (Mirror of Historical Science), _Speculum doctrinale_ (Mirror of Metaphysical Science), and _Speculum morale_ (Mirror of Moral Science).

M.Daunou, in the notice he has given to it [in the xviiith volume of the _Histoire litteraire de la France,_ begun by the Benedictines and continued by the _Academie des Inscriptions et Belleslettres de l'Institut,_ pp.

449-519], disputes, not without reason, the authenticity of this last part.

Each of these Specula contains a summary, extracted from the various writings which have reference to the subject of it, and the authors of which Vincent of Beauvais takes care to name.