The goal of The Encyclopedia or Reasoned Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts was “gathering the scattered knowledge on the surface of the earth, exposing the general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to men who will come after us”. The first volume of the colossal work of Diderot and d’Alembert was edited in 1751. The publication will take no less than twenty years.

The Age of Enlightenment continues to instill a desire for universality of knowledge in this important work of colossal scope: a team of academics, all specialists in the Encyclopedia , have published a specialized website to conduct research on the text. Of the 74,000 articles, 1.716 entries refer to the Horse. We can filter the results by author, domain, volume, etc.

Practical, if you want to read a text by Bourgelat on horse bits or one by Genson on the “street nail”.

The enlightening commentary by Mennessier de La Lance, as well as the illustrations dedicated to the carousel, are both available at the World Horse Library.

More information:

• The digitized version of l’ Encylopédie
• Le projet Enccre