Paper short abstract:

Gândavo’s story and illustration on the account of the Brazilian sea monster, published in Lisbon 1576, was translated and copied in several European languages and print formats. It is an example of knowledge transfer about marine natural wonders from the overseas to Europe in the late 16th century.

Paper long abstract:

Early Atlantic descriptions were sagas of seafaring and explorations in new territories punctuated by incidental comments on indigenous customs and natural singularities. Later on, writers about the New World Natural History made comparisons motivated by curiosity, economics or by sheer aesthetics. Nevertheless, most authors in the 16th and 17th centuries demonstrated an ability to observe and describe the natural world. These writers left important traces about zoology, botany and tropical medicine, creating a significant corpus for the establishment of a natural history of the exotic in Europe. Descriptions were based on empirical knowledge and hold amongst much information about natural environments and marine fauna. Here we present a casa worth of a detailed study, also bearing in mind the existence of written sources and associated imagery for analysis. Pêro de Magalhães Gândavo's "História da província Santa Cruz", Lisbon 1576, was written in Portuguese. His story and illustration on the occurrence of a sea monster was translated and copied into several European languages and print formats. Two illustrated leaflets have been produced: one Italian and other German. This story was later on, in 1585, retold and illustrated in Coenen's Whale Book. This is an example of knowledge transfer about marine natural wonders from Brazil to Lisbon and then to other European countries. The monstrous sea lion described by Gândavo gained significant and rapid attention across European circles of science and natural history, mostly due to its fantastic characteristics but also its representation of power display of Men over Nature.