Fauna Marinae
| The library has a few books only on marine fish and other marine animals, but among them are some of the oldest and finest illustrated works on the magnificent fauna of the sea. From the 1500s we have pioneer works of P. Belon du Mans and G. Rondelet, from the 1600s works of F. Willughby, and from the 1700s one of the largest and most beautiful works of all time on all sorts of marine fish with folio plates coloured by hand by M.E. Bloch. |
| Pierre Belon du Mans (1517-64): l'Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins ... (1551): |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Guillaume Rondelet (1507-66): Libri de Piscibus Marinis ... (1554-55): |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Both were pioneer works of marine, systematic zoology. The illustrations are wood engravings according to current techniques, most of which depict the actual fauna reasonably lifelike. But, true to the era, purely fabulous beings are also included in Rondelet's book. These include the bishop and monk fish, which many, more recent works have passed on - at first uncritically as fact - later as examples of the curious fabulous animals of that period in time. |
|
Francis Willughby (1635-72): De Historia Piscium ... (1686) |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723-99) published during the period 1782-95: Naturgeschichte der Fische ... in 12 volumes with 432 copper engravings coloured by hand in special folio volumes. It was a major work, which for many years was the standard work on the known fish of the world at that time. It was a masterpiece among the illustrated works of zoological literature from the 1700s. Figure drawing, engraving, and colouring is of very high quality. Silver often supplements the colours to illude to the play of light in the fish scales. Bloch received one of the fish from, and named it after "meinem Freund dem Herrn Professor Abildgaard" - the Danish naturalist Peter Christian Abildgaard (1740-1801), who founded the Veterinary College and this library. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
