[1524] His use of classical authors has already been treated by E. Boutaric, Vincent de Beauvais et la Connaisance de l’Antiquité classique au XIIIe siècle, in Revue des Questions Historiques, XVII (1875), 5-57; also printed separately.
Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, 1718-1728, XIV, 107-25, gives a list of about 350 names of authors or titles cited in the Speculum naturale; of these 254 are repeated by Daunou in HL XVIII, 483-4.
Unfortunately, at least in the printed edition of 1485, it is often not clear where quotations begin and end, or to just what passages the names of the authorities who are cited apply.
[1525] Daunou (HL XVIII, 486) asserts that Vincent had better MSS of Pliny than Albertus Magnus had.
[1526] Spec. nat., I, 10, Apologia de modo excerpendi de quibusdam libris Arestotelis.
[1527] Ibid., I, 3.
[1528] Ibid., VII, 6-7.
[1529] Ibid., IV, 93-4.
[1530] De animalibus, XXIII, 14. Frederick II, in his De arte venandi cum avibus, was equally sceptical and based his disbelief on personal investigation: Haskins in EHR XXXVI (1921) 351.
[1531] Spec. nat., XVII, 40.