Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon.

Medium: Woodcut illustration

Conrad Gesner, Tierbuch, Frankfurt 1563

A coloured German version of Conrad Gesner’s sea worms from the fourth volume of his Historiae Animalium. Gesner attributes the pictures of both of the the classic images of sea monsters to Olaus Magnus’s Carta marina of 1539. The dramatic power of the larger, more terrifying figure below it will dominate the many other images Gesner reproduces from the Carta Marina. The sea worms Gesner refers to are Olaus’s Great Orm, in which he described that “on the Coasts of Norway, there is a Serpent there which is of a vast magnitude, namely 200 foot long, and more-- over 20 feet thick; and it is wont to live and Rocks and Caves toward the Sea-coast about Berge; which will go along from his holes in a clear night in Summer and devour calves, Lambs, and Hogs, or else he goes into the Sea to feed on Polypus, Locusts, and all sorts of Sea-Crabs.... This Snake puts up his head on high like a pillar, and catcheth away men, and he devours them”.  Olaus’s “sea snake” and Gesber’s “sea worms” are later traditionally identifed as eels or flat ribbon worms.

Mythical Beast

From our Library Collections.

Conrad Gesner - Historiae animalium - 1551 / 1558 

This woodcut illustration is from Conard Gessner’s Historia animalium, Liber 4 of 1558. (Find our 1604 edition in the @biodivlibrary).