Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps

Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps

by Chet Van Duzer
Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps

Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps

by Chet Van Duzer

Paperback

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Overview

The sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps, whether swimming vigorously, gamboling amid the waves, attacking ships, or simply displaying themselves for our appreciation, are one of the most visually engaging elements on these maps, and yet they have never been carefully studied. The subject is important not only in the history of cartography, art, and zoological illustration, but also in the history of the geography of the "marvelous" and of western conceptions of the ocean. Moreover, the sea monsters depicted on maps can supply important insights into the sources, influences, and methods of the cartographers who drew or painted them. In this highly-illustrated book the author analyzes the most important examples of sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps produced in Europe, beginning with the earliest mappaemundi on which they appear in the 10th century and continuing to the end of the 16th century.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780712357715
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Publication date: 09/01/2014
Pages: 144
Sales rank: 454,697
Product dimensions: 8.60(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Chet Van Duzer is a Kislak Fellow at the Library of Congress. He is the author of Johann Schoner's Globe of 1515: Transcription and Study and co-author with John Hessler of Seeing the World Anew: The Radical Vision of Martin Waldseemuller's 1507 & 1516 World Maps.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction

Classical Antecedents
The Earliest Medieval Maps with Sea Monsters: Beatus Mappaemundi
“Let the Waters Bring Forth Abundantly”: Sea Monsters in the Creation
Sea Monsters in the Harbor of Brindisi
An Imagined Mappamundi with Sea Monsters
Sea Monsters on the Ceiling
Giant Sea Monsters on Two Small Mappaemundi
“A Vast Sea Where There is Nothing But the Abode of Monsters”
Two Monumental Mappaemundi with Few Sea Monsters
Three Sea Monsters Battling in the Atlantic

Pictorial Excursus: The Dangers of Sea Monsters

Sea Monsters on Nautical Charts: Giant Octopuses, Sirens, Sharks
How to Buy a Sea Monster
Whaling Between Myth and Reality
A Nest of Sea Monsters at the Bottom of the World
Whales as Big as Mountains
Terrifying Monsters in the Indian Ocean
A Skeptic about Sea Monsters: Fra Mauro

Pictorial Excursus: Whimsical Sea Monsters

Invented Sea Monsters in the Circumfluent Ocean
The Manuscript with the Most Sea Monsters
Sea Monsters in Printed Editions of Ptolemy
The Sea Monsters of the Earliest Surviving Terrestrial Globe
The Sea Monsters of Waldseemüller’s Map of 1507 and Schöner’s Globe of 1515
Lighting a Fire on a Whale’s Back

Pictorial Excursus: The Cartographic Career of the Walrus

The Debut of the Sea Monsters of the Renaissance
Olaus Magnus and the Most Important Sea Monsters of the Sixteenth Century
Mercator’s Globe of 1541: The Influence of Olaus Magnus
The Ulpius Globe: Sea Monsters Before Their Time
The Monster that Stops Ships in Their Tracks

Pictorial Excursus: More Whimsical Sea Monsters

From Sea Dragons to a Sawfish: The Rylands Library Map of 1546
Evidence of a Sea Monster Specialist
The Curious Career of the Flying Turtle
The Eclecticism of Giacomo Gastaldi
The Sea Monsters of Gerard Mercator’s Great Map of 1569
Sea Monsters Cavorting Among the Mediterranean Isles
The Sea Monsters Surrounding Iceland in the First Atlas
A Haunting Sea Monster Reappears
Whales Fantastic and Realistic at the End of the Sixteenth Century
Two New World Sea Monsters
Conclusion

Endnotes
Index
Index of Manuscripts
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