Acknowledgments ix
List of Figures x
Notes on the Editors xxv
Notes on the Contributors xxvii

1. Introduction: Towards a Cultural History of Early Modern Ichthyology (1500–1880) 1
Paul J. Smith

Part 1 – Beginnings

2. Fish Images True to Life and a 16th-Century Controversy between Rondelet and Salviani: Essay and Documentation of the Sources 29
Holger Funk

3. Beginnings of Ichthyological Natural History: Formal and Structural Questions 91
Philippe Glardon

4. The Many Names of Fish: Scientific and Poetic Fish Nomenclature in the Writings of Johann Fischart and Conrad Gessner 111
Tobias Bulang

5. Aquatilia of Portugal in 1555–1556 According to Leonhardt Thurneysser zum Thurn 123
Bernardo Jerosch Herold and João Paulo S. Cabral

Part 2 – Depicting

6. Looking beyond the Margins of Print: Depicting Water Creatures in Europe, c. 1500–1620 147
Florike Egmond

7. Ichthyology and Related Topics in MS Urb. lat. 276 (13th–17th Centuries) 244
Cynthia M. Pyle

8. A Taste for Fish: Paintings of Aquatic Animals in the Low Countries (1560–1729) 259
Marlise Rijks

9. Fishing in the Past: Biodiversity, Art History, and Citizen Science – Preliminary Results 298
Anne M. Overduin-de Vries and Paul J. Smith

Part 3 – Fish and Society in Europe

10. Piscatorial Elements in 16th-Century Literature in Bruges: Fantasy Scenes and Compassionate Eulogies 325
Dirk Geirnaert

11. What Are the Fish Silent about? Selected Historical Facts on the Use of Fish in Medieval Medicine: A Qualitative Study Based on Sources from the Middle Low German Dictionary Archive 340
Sabina Tsapaeva

12. The Invisible Fisherman: The Economy of Water Knowledge in Early Modern Venice 364
Pietro Daniel Omodeo

13. ‘Um Grande Peixe, Dona Baleia da Costa’: The Whale in Portuguese Early Modern Natural History 392
Cristina Brito

14. ‘My Eyes Have Never Yet Beheld Him’: Demythologising Arctic Sea Monsters in the Poetry of the Norwegian Priest and Fish Merchant Petter Dass (1647–1707) 420
Ronny Spaans

15. The Historical Truth behind the “Salmon-Servant” Myth 454
Rob Lenders

16. Public Opinion on Seals in Dutch Newspapers 1725–1900 474
Paul J. Smith

Part 4 – Ichthyological Knowledge from Afar

17. The Travelling Nautilus: Spaces of Circulation from the Indian Ocean to Britain 495
Melinda Susanto

18. François de Meyer’s Fish Travelogue (1698) 523
Paul J. Smith, Didi van Trijp and Alan Moss

19. The Afterlives of Fish Far from Home: (Mis)Representations in the Iconography of Preserved and Printed Pufferfish in 18th-Century Germany 554
Dorothee Fischer

20. Louis Renard (1678/1679–1746) and His Poissons, écrevisses et crabes (1719): 300 Years of One of Natural History’s Most Curious Colour Plate Books 584
Theodore W. Pietsch and Justin R. Hanisch

21. Distance, Geography, and Anecdote in M.E. Bloch’s Natural History of Fishes 612
Johannes Müller

22. Between Science and Art: On Painted Natural Illustrations of Fish in China 632
Ching-Ling Wang

23. Early “Dutch” Contributions to Japanese Ichthyology 654
Martien J.P. van Oijen

24. Packaging Knowledge about Whales in Early Modern Japan 678
Doreen Mueller

25. Images, Specimens, and Species: Hermann Schlegel on the Various Ways of Depicting a Fish 701
Robbert Striekwold

Index Nominum 727
Index of Aquatic Animals 735