1300 Real and Fanciful Animals by Matthaus (the Younger) Merian

Author:Matthaus (the Younger) Merian
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486132761
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

40237106

www.doverpublications.com

Table of Contents

DOVER PICTORIAL ARCHIVE SERIES

Title Page

Copyright Page

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Quadrupeds

Snakes

Mollusks and Crustaceans

Fish

Birds

Insects

INDEX

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

1300 Real and Fanciful Animals includes a varied selection of plates from Theatrum universale omnium Animalium. The first edition of that work was published by the engraving firm of Merian in Frankfurt after 1650. Matthäus Merian the Younger, who had inherited the business after the death of his father, Matthäus Merian the Elder, in 1650, continued publishing a variety of illustrated works until his own death in 1687. The younger Merian, born in Switzerland in 1621, was a portrait painter, etcher, and engraver who traveled in his youth to Amsterdam, London, and Paris. He also lived in Italy and in Nuremberg for a total of eight years before he took over the management of the workshop that in his father’s time had been renowned for producing engraved views and plans of European towns and cities. In addition to the first edition of Theatrum universale omnium Animalium, Merian the Younger may have been responsible for publishing the later volumes of Theatrum Europaeum . . . Historia Universalis.

In 1718, the Amsterdam firm of R. & G. Wetstenios published the 260 engraved plates of images from Theatrum universale omnium Animalium in two volumes, with Latin texts on the natural history of the animals by Heinrich Ruysch (a professor of botany and medicine) and John Johnston (also a medical doctor), each of whom had large collections of specimens. The work was divided into six main sections, depicting fish, birds, quadrupeds, mollusks and crustaceans, terrestrial and aquatic insects, and snakes. (The authors developed their categories prior to the immense labor of classifying the known varieties of animals accomplished by the eighteenth-century Swedish botanist and medical doctor widely known by the Latinized form of his name, Carolus Linnaeus. Thus, some of the groupings differ from modern practice.) Some of the creatures portrayed were drawn from life, others from specimens preserved in several collections. The actual species shown included many native to Africa, the Americas, and Asia, as well as those familiar in Europe. Descriptions of the mythical creatures portrayed were derived from ancient and medieval accounts. These imaginary beasts include two griffins, a phoenix, a unicorn, a harpy with a masculine head, a mermaid and a merman, a hydra-headed monster, a horned rabbit, dragons, basilisks, and sea monsters.

The Latin labels provided for the creatures depicted in the engraved plates of the 1718 edition have been preserved in this volume. To aid reference to illustrations of both real and imaginary animals, an index of common names has been provided.

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