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Summary
In his book Serpentum et Draconum Historiae Libri Duo, the sixteenth-century Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi described and illustrated an alleged dragon that had supposedly been killed in 1572. The ‘dragon’ became famous and was the centrepiece of Aldrovandi's museum. The specimen, a long-necked, long-tailed, scale-covered biped with a thickened torso and a forked tongue, was unlike any currently known bipedal animal and is therefore suspicious. Even so, an explicit description of its true nature has not been published before now. Here we examine Aldrovandi's description and illustration, compare these with extant animals, and conclude that the specimen was a taxidermic hoax. It was made by attaching the forelimbs of a common toad (Bufo bufo) to a European grass snake (Natrix natrix) the midsection of which had been replaced by that of a fish. Fake dragons abounded in the museums of Renaissance Europe, but only in a few cases has the mystery of their true nature been investigated. Aldrovandi's dragon can now be added to the list of such solved zoological mysteries.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Sherrice Allen (Fayetteville State University), who served as coordinator for BIOL 430, an undergraduate research course under the auspices of which this project began.
Notes
1 Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley, 1996), 17.
2 Peter Dance, Animal Fakes and Frauds (Berkshire, 1976), 17–36, 57–61.
3 Ulisse Aldrovandi, Serpentum et Draconum Historiae Libri Duo (Bologna, 1640). A photocopy of the entire book is available online at http://amshistorica.unibo.it/126.
4 P. Findlen (note 1), 17–8.
5 U. Aldrovandi (note 3), 401–16.
6 Giuseppe Olmi, ‘Ulisse Aldrovandi’, in The Great Naturalists, edited by Robert Huxley (London, 2007), 59–62.
7 The Tavole are unpublished in print, but photos of the entire collection are posted online at http://www.filosofia.unibo.it/aldrovandi/pinakesweb/main.asp.
8 P. Findlen (note 1), 19–20.
9 Guido Kreiner, The Snakes of Europe. All Species from West of the Caucasus Mountains (Frankfurt am Main, 2007), 140–56.
10 Charles Anthon, A New Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, Mythology, and Geography (New York, 1878), 1027.
11 G. Kreiner (note 9).
12 U. Aldrovandi (note 3), 403.
13 U. Aldrovandi (note 3), 403.
14 Peter S. Maitland, Guide to Freshwater Fish of Britain and Europe (London, 2000).
15 P. S. Maitland (note 14).
16 E. Nicholas Arnold, Reptiles and Amphibians of Europe (Princeton, 2002).
17 Arnold (note 16), 73.
18 U. Aldrovandi (note 3), 401.
19 U. Aldrovandi (note 3), 403.
20 U. Aldrovandi (note 3), 403.
21 U. Aldrovandi (note 3), 403.
22 U. Aldrovandi (note 3), 403.
23 U. Aldrovandi (note 3), 403.
24 Findlen (note 1), 17.
25 Johannes Faber, ‘Dracunculus Monoceros’, in Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus Seu Plantarum Animalium Mineralium Mexicanorum Historia, edited by the Lyncean Academy (Rome, 1651), 816–28.
26 David Freedberg, The Eye of the Lynx. Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History (Chicago, 2002), 364.
27 Cornelio Meyer, Nuovi Ritrovamenti Divisi in Due Parti (Rome, 1696), illustration on title page and illustration on unnumbered last page.
28 George C. Kirchmeyer, ‘On the Dragon’, in Un-natural History, or Myths of Ancient Science, Volume 3, edited by Edmund Goldsmid (Edinburgh, 1886 translation of 1691 text), 15–36.
29 Phil Senter and Pondanesa Wilkins, ‘Investigation of a claim of a late-surviving pterosaur and exposure of a taxidermic hoax: the case of Cornelius Meyer's dragon’, Palaeontologia Electronica, 16(1.6A) (2012), 1–11.
30 P. Dance (note 2).