Sea Creatures — Historia Animalium, 1558

Three woodcuts of marine creatures, printed on both sides of a leaf from the Latin edition of Conrad Gesner’s Historia animalium. Christoph Froschauer printed the volume at Zürich in 1558. This leaf has later hand colouring, with green and blue washes that distinguish the animals from the surrounding letterpress.

The most striking figure is the long green creature identified as Serpentis Indici, the Indian serpent. Below it is the blue Balaena, whose name was used for whales. The reverse is headed De Cetis and includes a third woodcut set into the Latin text. The two sides let the reader see the images in the form in which they were first encountered, alongside the names and accounts that gave them meaning.

Gesner drew on classical writings, accounts from travellers and earlier illustrations as he assembled his encyclopaedia of animals. The juxtaposition of familiar and extraordinary creatures makes this leaf a particularly good example of how a sixteenth-century naturalist gathered and compared knowledge of the sea. The sheet measures 34.5 × 22 cm and is in good condition.