Baleias e monstros, iconografia e repetições na história da história natural: representações visuais de animais marinhos na época medieval e renascentista

Abstract

Despite living in an environment that is inhospitable to humans, marine mammals always aroused interest, questions and surprise, and descriptions of their occurrence repeatedly appear in reports. For the medieval and Renaissance periods, iconographic analysis allows the reconstruction of the real beings behind the stories and the perception of details that usually get lost in the texts and descriptions. In addition to bones and skins, it was particularly difficult to bring evidence of some marine mammals from overseas to Europe. In the cabinets of curiosities and the pharmacies are scarce the remains of these animals and the symbolic gesture of bringing and keeping nature were often replaced by their engravings, paintings and drawings. Whatever the time and the technique used, the naturalistic or zoological illustrations demote to a complex relationship with the texts, having an explanatory and scientific intention behind it. Sometimes, images are no longer complements or substitutes to the cornerstone of the information to be transmitted. In this case, visual representations, as well as the repetitive copying of images, become the vehicle of transmission of natural information. Even though the use of repeated images of marine mammals does not allow accompanying the growing of the natural corpus that was being accumulated. But considering that spoken and written languages change between countries and cultures, visual representations remain constant and are an effective form of universal language for the transmission of scientific and natural knowledge.