Paper short abstract:

Early modern accounts of exotic marine mammals and fantastic beings, such as manatees and mermaids, allow a discussion about the circulation of the well-established encyclopedic knowledge about Nature and the construction of an empirical natural history of the new marine world across Europe.

Paper long abstract:

Most of early modern accounts about exotic fauna, for the Portuguese Atlantic, did not enter the European natural history treaties and encyclopaedia. Several 15th and 16th centuries Overseas' observations from the natural world are not included, particularly for exotic marine animals. While some African and Brazilian terrestrial animals and birds are comprised in the works of several European authors, the only two marine mammals that are mentioned are Gândavo's sea monster and the manatee. With a couple of noticeable exceptions, European naturalists relied essentially on Classical authors to describe marine species and in some cases made use of contemporary examples from European occurrences, or some new information gathered through their networks of collectors and naturalists, to add some originality. On the contrary, authors travelling the Atlantic relied on empirical information gathered by themselves or obtained through circles of contact regarding information from the overseas. Mermaids, and manatees offer a case for debating the production and circulation of information for an history of exotic natural history, patterns of knowledge evolution and key actors. Based on written and visual sources is possible to analyse the construction and transfer of knowledge about mermaids as real elements of the old and new natural marine world in comparison to the slow development of natural knowledge related to manatees in Europe. This will allow to establish a long-term chronology of marine knowledge production and circulation and to compare it with the persistence and relevance of monsters from the sea, during early modern Europe and Atlantic.