Physiologus. Ed. F. Sbordóne.

Physiologus, a didactic Christian text, is thought to have been written or compiled in Greek by an unknown author in Alexandria, 200-275 CE. It describes a "hodgepodge" of animals, real and imaginery, with the fig tree and a few stones with "remarkable" properties thrown in. The Physiologus is distinguished from Aelian's compilation by the presence of explicit Christological interpretations of the lion, the pelican, and other animals. Francesco Sbordone's edition, based on the collation of 77 Greek manuscripts, established three traditions in the surviving manuscripts of the text: a "primitive" tradition, a Byzantine tradition and a pseudo-Basil (Syriac) tradition. Morgan codex 397, an illuminated Greek codex from Grottaferrata, has since been established as the earliest surviving Greek text of Physiologus.