Ichthyology in Context (1500–1880)

Paul J. Smith is Emeritus Professor of French Literature at Leiden University. His research focuses on 16th- and 17th-century French literature, its reception in the Netherlands, French and Dutch fable and emblem books, literary rhetoric and early modern natural history.Florike Egmond is a historian affiliated with Leiden University. She has published widely on the early modern history of natural history, especially its social networks, information exchanges and visual culture, including Eye for Detail: Images of Plants and Animals in Art and Science (Reaktion 2017).

"All [chapters] are fascinating. Ichthyology in Context will become a landmark volume for anyone interested in the history of ichthyology. [...] a fabulous insight into the thinking and research directions of the best current historians of ichthyology.Paul Martin, University of Bristol, in Archives of Natural History 51.2 (2024): 460-461

• AcknowledgmentsList of FiguresNotes on the EditorsNotes on the Contributors1 Introduction: Towards a Cultural History of Early Modern Ichthyology (1500–1880)Paul J. SmithPart 1: Beginnings2 Fish Images True to Life and a 16th-Century Controversy between Rondelet and Salviani. Essay and Documentation of the SourcesHolger Funk3 Beginnings of Ichthyological Natural History: Formal and Structural QuestionsPhilippe Glardon4 The Many Names of Fish: Scientific and Poetic Fish Nomenclature in the Writings of Johann Fischart and Conrad GessnerTobias Bulang5 Aquatilia of Portugal in 1555–1556 According to Leonhardt Thurneysser zum ThurnBernardo Jerosch Herold and João Paulo S. CabralPart 2: Depicting6 Looking beyond the Margins of Print: Depicting Water Creatures in Europe, c.1500–1620Florike Egmond7 Ichthyology and Related Topics in MS Urb. lat. 276 (13th–17th Centuries)Cynthia M. Pyle8 A Taste for Fish: Paintings of Aquatic Animals in the Low Countries (1560–1729)Marlise Rijks9 Fishing in the Past: Biodiversity, Art History, and Citizen Science – Preliminary ResultsAnne M. Overduin-de Vries and Paul J. SmithPart 3: Fish and Society in Europe10 Piscatorial Elements in 16th-Century Literature in Bruges: Fantasy Scenes and Compassionate EulogiesDirk Geirnaert11 What Are the Fish Silent about? Selected Historical Facts on the Use of Fish in Medieval MedicineA Qualitative Study Based on Sources from The Middle Low German Dictionary ArchiveSabina Tsapaeva12 The Invisible Fisherman: The Economy of Water Knowledge in Early Modern VenicePietro Daniel Omodeo13 ‘Um Grande Peixe, Dona Baleia da Costa’: The Whale in Portuguese Early Modern Natural HistoryCristina Brito14 ‘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)Ronny Spaans15 The Historical Truth behind the “Salmon-Servant” MythRob Lenders16 Public Opinion on Seals in Dutch Newspapers 1725–1900Paul J. SmithPart 4: Ichthyological Knowledge from Afar17 The Travelling Nautilus: Spaces of Circulation from the Indian Ocean to BritainMelinda Susanto18 François de Meyer’s Fish Travelogue (1698)Paul J. Smith, Didi van Trijp and Alan Moss19 The Afterlives of Fish Far from Home: (Mis)Representations in the Iconography of Preserved and Printed Pufferfish in 18th-Century GermanyDorothee Fischer20 Louis Renard (1678/1679–1746) and His Poissons, ecrevisses et crabes (1719): 300 Years of One of Natural History’s most Curious Colour Plate BooksTheodore W. Pietsch and Justin R. Hanisch21 Distance, Geography, and Anecdote in M.E. Bloch’s Natural History of FishesJohannes Müller22 Between Science and Art: On Painted Natural Illustrations of Fish in ChinaChing-Ling Wang23 Early “Dutch” Contributions to Japanese IchthyologyMartien J.P. van Oijen24 Packaging Knowledge about Whales in Early Modern JapanDoreen Mueller25 Images, Specimens, and Species: Hermann Schlegel on the Various Ways of Depicting a FishRobbert StriekwoldIndex NominumIndex of Aquatic Animals