Secrecy, Ostentation, and the Illustration of Exotic Animals in Sixteenth-Century Portugal

Summary

During the first decades of the sixteenth century, several animals described and viewed as exotic by the Europeans were regularly shipped from India to Lisbon. This paper addresses the relevance of these ‘new’ animals to knowledge and visual representations of the natural world. It discusses their cultural and scientific meaning in Portuguese travel literature of the period as well as printed illustrations, charts and tapestries. This paper suggests that Portugal did not make the most of its unique position in bringing news and animals from Asia. This was either because secrecy associated with trade and military interests hindered the diffusion of illustrations presented in Portuguese travel literature or because the illustrations commissioned by the nobility were represented on expensive media such as parchments and tapestries and remained treasured possessions. However, the essay also proposes that the Portuguese contributed to a new sense of the experience and meaning of nature and that they were crucial mediators in access to new knowledge and new ways of representing the natural world during this period.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous referees for their very helpful comments and suggestions.

Notes

¹On the Portuguese empire in Asia, see S. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History (London, 1993); M. Newitt, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400–1668 (London, 2005; D. Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation Upon the Ocean Sea: Portugals Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640 (Oxford, 2007).

²N. Vassalo e Silva, ‘Preciosidades e Maravilhas entre Goa e Lisboa’, in Exotica: Os Descobrimentos e as Câmaras de Maravilhas do Renascimento, edited by H. Trnnek and N. Vassallo Silva (Lisbon, 2001), pp. 27–37.

³See D.F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, 2 vols (Chicago, 1970), p. 120.

⁴J.-P. Rubiés, Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South India Through European Eyes, 1250–1625 (Cambridge, 2000), p. 2.

⁵J. Canizares-Esguerra, ‘Iberian Science in the Renaissance: Ignored How Much Longer’, Perspectives on Science 12 (2004) 86–124, p. 86.

⁶J. Cañizares-Esguerra, ‘Iberian Colonial Science’, Isis 96 (2005) 64–70, p. 70.

⁷P.H. Smith and P. Findlen (eds.), Merchants & Marvels: Commerce, Science and Art in Early Modern Europe (New York, 2002). Harold J. Cook as also called attention to the importance of commerce in the development of Dutch natural history and medicine. See H.J. Cook, Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven, CT, 2007).

⁸On the historiography of Portuguese imperial science, see P. Fontes da Costa and H. Leitão, ‘Portuguese Imperial Science: A Historiographical Review’, in Science, Power and the Order of Nature in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, edited by D. Bleichmar, P. De Vos, K. Huffine (Stanford, CA, i2008, pp. 35–53).

⁹ This narrative is attributed to Álvaro Velho. It was not published but several manuscript copies seem to have circulated in the period. See J.M. Garcia, As Viagens dos Descobrimentos (Lisbon, 1983), pp. 219–20

¹⁰D. Barbosa, [Livro do que viu e ouviu no Oriente, c. 1511–1516], The book of Duarte Barbosa: an account of the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean and their inhabitants [translated from the Portuguese text by M.L. Dames (London, 1918–1921), I, p. 198.

¹¹T. Pires, [The Suma Oriental, c.1512–1515] The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires, edited and translated by A. Cortesão (London, 1944), I, p. 172.

¹²Quoted in A.F. da Costa, Les déambulations du rhinocéros de Modofar (Lisbon, 1937), p. 46. Gaspar Correias’Lendas da India is translated into English. See G. Correia, The three voyages of Vasco da Gama and his viceroyalty from the Lendas da India, translated from the Portuguese with notes and an introduction by H. Stanley (London, 1869).

¹³A. Galvão, [O Tratado das Molucas, c.1544] A Treatise on the Moluccas, edited and translated by M. Jacobs (Rome, 1971), p. 61.

¹⁴A. Galvão, [O Tratado das Molucas, c.1544] A Treatise on the Moluccas, edited and translated by M. Jacobs (Rome, 1971), pp. 61–69.

¹⁵Antonio Barrera has also shown that experience assumed a new role in validating knowledge from the New World in sixteenth-century Spain. See A. Barrera, ‘Local Herbs, Global Medicines: Commerce, Knowledge, and Commodities’, in Merchants & Marvels: Commerce, Science and Art in Early Modern Europe, edited by P.H. Smith and P. Findlen (New York), pp. 163–81.

¹⁶Pires (note 10), I, Preface.

¹⁷D.P. Pereira, Esmeraldo de situ orbis, edited and translated by G. Kimble (London, 1937), p. 12.

¹⁸Galvão (note 12), p. 67

¹⁹Galvão (note 12), p. 69.

²⁰Pires (note 10), II, p. 449.

²¹The history of credit and proof concerning natural knowledge in the early modern period has recently received considerable attention. See, among others, L. Daston, ‘Baconian Facts, Academic Civility, and the Prehistory of Objectivity’, Annals of Scholarship 8 (1991) 337–63; S. Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago, 1995); R.W. Serjeantson, ‘Testimony and proof in early-modern England’, Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 30 (1999)195–236.

²²J.O. Caetano, Gravura e conhecimento do mundo: o livro ilustrado nas colecções da Biblioteca Nacional, Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa (Lisbon, 1998), p. 16.

²³J.M.H. Massari, Libros de Viajes de los siglos XVI y XVII en España y Portugal: Lectura e Lectores (Madrid, 1999), p. 42.

²⁴J.M.H. Massari, Libros de Viajes de los siglos XVI y XVII en España y Portugal: Lectura e Lectores (Madrid, 1999), p. 41.

²⁵See A. Pimpão, ‘A Historiografia Oficial e o Sigilo sobre os Descobrimentos’, in Congresso da História da Expansão Portuguesa no Mundo, 1 secção (Lisbon, 1938), F.C. Domingues, ‘Colombo e a Política de Sigilo na Historiografia Portuguesa’, Mare Liberum 1 (1990) 105–16, J.B. de Macedo, O Carácter Europeu dos Descobrimentos e o Sigilo Nacional na sua Realização (Lisbon, 1994), and J. Cortesão, A Política de Sigilo nos Descobrimentos (Lisbon, 1996).

²⁶In his analysis, Lach repeatedly puts forward the argument for a Portuguese ‘control’ of information. See Lach (note 2), I, pp. 151–54. The view has, however, received criticism since it is difficult to prove that there was a systematic attempt to prevent any information about new lands to ‘leak’ into the hands of foreign competitors, but there is little doubt that, at least in the sixteenth century Iberian Peninsula, governments organized their own sources and information relating to colonies as matters of state. See Rubiés (note 3), pp. 3–4.

²⁷See A. Anselmo, L'Activité Typographique de Valentim Fernandes au Portugal (1495–1518) (Paris, 1984); Y. Hendrich, Valentim Fernandes: ein deutscher Buchdrucker in Portugal um die Wende vom 15. zum 16. Jahrhundert und sein Umkreis (Frankfurt-am-Main, 2007).

²⁸An illustrative example is Fernandes’ letter sent on June 26, 1510 to a correspondent in Nuremberg which summarized events that had taken place in Asia from 1506 to 1509, including the Portuguese arrival in Ceylon. See A. Brásio, ‘Uma Carta Inédita de Valemtim Fernandes’, Boletim Bibliográfico da Universidade de Coimbra 24 (1959) 338–58.

²⁹J.R. Pinto, A Viagem: Memória e Espaço, A Literatura Portuguesa de Viagens Revisitada, os Primitivos Relatos de Viagem ao Índico 1497–1550 (Umpublished PhD dissertation, Universidade de Lisboa, 1987), pp. 211–12.

³⁰Pires (note 10), p. lxvii.

³¹ Códice 923, p. 70, Portuguese National Library.

³²Galvão (note 12), p. 67.

³³ On the issue of what could be considered a naturalistic representation in the period, see A.J.S. Ackerman, ‘Early Renaissance ‘Naturalism’ and Scientific Illustration’, in The Natural Sciences and the Arts: Aspects of Interaction from the Renaissance to the 20 ^th Century . An International Symposium, edited by A. Ellenius (Uppsala, 1985), pp. 1–17. See also P.H. Smith, ‘Artists as scientists: nature and realism in early modern Europe’, Endeavour 24 (2000), 13–21.

³⁴P.H. Smith and P. Findlen, ‘Commerce and the Representation of Nature in Art and Science’, in Merchants & Marvels: Commerce, Science and Art in Early Modern Europe, edited by P.H. Smith and P. Findlen (New York, 2002), pp. 1–25 (p.11).

³⁵ Imagens do Oriente no século XVI: Reprodução do Códice Português da Biblioteca Casatanense, edited by L. Matos (Lisbon, 1985).

³⁶See P. Dias, História da Arte Portuguesa no Mundo, 1415–1822: Espaço Índíco (Lisbon, 1998), p. 218 and L. Matos, ‘Introdução’, in Imagens do Oriente no século XVI: Reprodução do Códice Português da Biblioteca Casatanense, edited by L. Matos (Lisbon, 1985), p. 24.

³⁷R. Barchiesi, ‘O manuscrito pictórico da Casanatense’, in Além Mar: Códice Casanatense 1889 com o livro do Oriente de Duarte Barbosa, with texts by C. Guadalupi, C. Boxer, R. Barchiesi and an introduction by F. Braudel (Lisbon, 1984), p. 298.

³⁸Barbosa (note 9), II, p. 83 and Pires (note 10), I, p. 172.

³⁹F. Lopes da Castanheda, História do Descobrimento da Índia pelos Portugueses, 2 vols (Coimbra, 1552), II, pp. 260–63.

⁴⁰On printing techniques, see W.M. Ivins, Prints and Visual Communication (Cambridge, MA, 1989).

⁴¹E. Soares, Evolução da Gravura de Madeira em Portugal, séculos XV a XIX (Lisbon, 1951), p. 12, and J.V. de Pina Martins, O livro Português no Reinado de D. Manuel I’, Panorama, 32 (1969), 58–75, p. 59.

⁴⁴C. da Costa, Tratado delas Drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales, con sus plantas debuxadas al bivo por Christoval Acosta medico y cirujano que las vio ocularmente (Burgos, 1578), ‘Al Lector’.

⁴²Cristovão da Costa was born in the African territory and come to India in 1568 as a physician/surgeon in the fleet of D. Luis de Ataide, the Portuguese Viceroy to India. In 1571 he left for Lisbon and finally Spain where he worked as a medical practitioner in the town of Burgos till 1586. He died most likely in 1594.

⁴³Orta's Colloquies was the first work to systematise the knowledge and medical applications of some of the new plants encountered by the Portuguese and other Europeans in Asia. It does not present any illustration, and we do not have any information on Orta's views of the use of pictures in the diffusion of medical and natural historical knowledge. Besides, the genre of the work might have also contributed to the absence of illustrations: it was presented in the form of a dialogue between a fictitious Dr Ruano and Orta himself. We should also bear in mind the cost and effort involved in including illustrations in printed works and that the printing press had recently been introduced in Goa, De Orta's Coloquies being just the third work published in this territory by the Portuguese. Orta's Colloquies is translated into English and French. See G. de Orta, Colloquies on the Simple and Drugs of India, translated by C. Markham (Delhi, 1987) and G. de Orta, Colloques des simples et des drogues de l'Inde, edited by S.M. Ramos and A Ramos and translated by S. Ramos (Paris, 2004). On Orta's contribution to natural history, see R.N. Kapil and A.K. Bhatnagar, ‘Portuguese Contributions to Indian Botany’, ISIS 67(1976) 449–52.

⁴⁵See P.M. Jones, ‘Image, word, and Medicine in the Middle Ages’, in Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200–1550, edited by J.A. Givens, K.M. Reeds and A. Touwaide (London, 2006), pp. 25–50.

⁴⁶S. Kusukawa, ‘Uses of pictures in printed books: The case of Clusius’ Exoticorum libri decem’, in Carolus Clusius, Towards a cultural histotory of a Renaissance naturalist, edited by F. Egmond, P. Hoftizer and R. Visser (Amsterdam, 2007), pp. 221–46 (pp. 225–26).

⁴⁷C. Swan, ‘The Uses of Realism in Early Modern Botany’, in Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200–1550, edited by A. Givens, K.M. Reeds and A. Touwaide (London, 2006), pp. 239–49 (pp. 243–44).

⁴⁸B. Osório, A fauna dos Lusiadas (Lisbon, 1906). On the flora of The Lusiads, see Conde de Ficalho, Flora d’ os Lusíadas (Lisbon, 1994).

⁴⁹On the political meaning of this and other large-scale tapestry series for the imperial courts of the period, see L. Jardine and J. Brotton, Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West (London, 2000), pp. 63–131.

⁵⁰On the commissioning of these tapestries and on their location in various museums of the world, see , M.F. P Leite. ‘Le débarquement’, in Feitorias. L'art au Portugal au temps des grandes découvertes (Antwerp, 1991), pp. 145–46. Other tapestries commissioned by the Portuguese nobility of the period also represent exotic animals such as elephants, ostriches and monkeys. See, for example, the series of Flemish tapestries commemorating the victories of D. João de Castro in India. The original drawings have been attributed to the Portuguese painter António Campelo. On these tapestries, see F. Paulino (ed.), Tapeçarias de D. João de Castro (Lisbon, 1995).

⁵¹D. de Gois, Descrição da Cidade de Lisboa [1554] (Lisbon, 2001), pp. 34–36.

⁵²On the meaning of the unicorn in classical and medieval literature, see J. Cherry, Mythical Beasts (London, 1995), pp. 44–71.

⁵³W.B. Ashworth, Jr, ‘Emblematic natural history of the Renaissance’, in Cultures of Natural History, edited by N. Jardine, J. Secord and E. Spary (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 17–37.

⁵⁴P. Findlen, ‘Inventing Nature: Commerce, Art, and Science in the Early Modern Cabinet of Curiosities’, in Merchants & Marvels: Commerce, Science and Art in Early Modern Europe, edited by P.H. Smith and P. Findlen (New York, 2002), pp. 297–323.

⁵⁶D. de Gois, Crónia do Felicíssimo Rei D. Manuel [1566–1567] (Coimbra, 1926), p. 198.

⁵⁵ I.V. Barbosa, Apontamentos para a História das Colecções de Zoologia em Portugal (Lisbon, 1885), p. 5. The first references to Portuguese menageries date back to the end of the thirteenth century to King D. Diniz. It is known that the menagerie of King Afonso V had some animals from Africa of which. In 1475, he offered a few to King Louis XI of France. See G. Loisel, Histoire des menageries de l'antiquité à nos jours (Paris, 1912), pp. 215–20. On menageries and the exchange of exotic animals, see also A.V.N. Kisling Jr, Colonial Menageries and the Exchange of Exotic Faunas’, Archives of Natural History 25 (1998), 303–20.

⁵⁷V.P. dos Santos, ‘O exotismo na vida portuguesa na época de D. Manuel’, Panorama 32 (1969), 84–93.

⁵⁸On the close relationship between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture in the appreciation of wonders of nature, see F. Egmond and P. Mason, The Mammoth and the Mouse, Microhistory and Morphology (Baltimore, MD, 1997), pp. 7–41.

⁵⁹A.F. Bouza-Álvares, Cultura escrita e história do livro: a circulação manuscrita nos séculos XVI e XVII’, Revista da Biblioteca Nacional, 9–10 (2002), 63–95.

⁶⁰W. George, Animals and Maps (Berkeley, CA, 1969), p. 23.

⁶¹V. Dickenson, Drawn from Nature: Science and Art in the Portrayal of the New World (Toronto, 1998), p. 34.

⁶²D. Marki, Introdução’, in Livro de Horas de D. Manuel, edited by D. Marki (Lisbon, 1983), pp. 11–12.

⁶³P. Dias, ‘Livre d'Heures de D. Manuel’, in Feitorias: L'Art au Portugal au temps des grandes découvertes (Antwerp, 1991), pp. 227–28.

⁶⁴Jones (note 44), p. 23

⁶⁵These are folios 98v and 271v in D. Manuel's Book of Hours, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon.

⁶⁶The work began in 1517 during the reign of D. Manuel I but only ended around 1538 in the reign of his son, D. João III. See Marki (note 32), p. 20.

⁶⁷W. Ashworth Jr, W., ‘The Persistent Beast: Recurring Images in Early Zoological Illustration’, in The Natural Sciences and the Arts: Aspects of Interaction from the Renaissance to the 20 ^th Century, An International Symposium, edited by A. Ellenius (Uppsala, 1985), pp. 46–66. See also W. Ashworth Jr, ‘Emblematic natural history in the Renaissance’, in Cultures of Natural History, edited by N. Jardine, J.A. Secord and E. Spary (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 17–37

⁶⁸The Eight Book of Odiana belongs to a collection of sixty-one manuscripts initiated by King Manuel I at the beginning of the sixteenth century known as Leitura Nova. They are held at Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon.

⁶⁹Especially representative are: K. Pomian, Collectors and Curiosities: Paris and Venice, 1500–1800 [1987], translated by E. Wiles-Portier (Cambridge, 1994); P. Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collections and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy [1994], 2nd edition (Berkeley, CA, 1996); J. Elsner and R. Cardinal (eds.), The Cultures of Collecting (London, 1994); L. Daston and K. Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–750 (New York, 1998; K. Arnold, Ken Cabinets for the Curious: Looking Back at Early English Museums (London, 2006).

⁷⁰The practice of displaying natural curiosities goes back to the exhibition of relics in churches of the Middle Ages. Besides relics, natural specimens like bones of giants were often exhibited in churches not only as a way of attracting attendance but also because of their special meaning in relation to the Biblical narrative. The discovery of large bones had been connected with the existence of giants at least from the time of the early church fathers, who derived biblical support for the existence of giants before the time of Noah from Genesis 6:4 (‘There were giants in the earth in those days’). See A. Schnapper, Le géant, la licorne et la tulipe: collections et collectionneurs dans la France du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1988), p. 98.

⁷¹A.J. Gschwend, ‘As Maravilhas do oriente: Colecções de Curiosidades Renascentistas em Portugal/The Marvels of the East: Renaissance Curiosity Collections in Portugal’, in A Herança de Rauluchantim/The Heritage of Rauluchantim, edited by N.V. da Silva (Lisbon, 1996), pp. 82–127.

⁷²Silva (note 1), pp. 34–35.

⁷³A.S. Bedini, The Pope's Elephant (Manchester, 1997).

⁷⁴J.J. Cohen, ‘Inventing with Animals in the Middle Ages’, in Engaging with Nature: Essays on the Natural World in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, edited by B.A. Hanawalt and L.J. Kiser (Notre Dame, 2008), pp 39–62 (p. 46).

⁷⁵J.E.B. Lloyd, African Animals in Renaissance Literature and Art (Oxford, 1971), p. 157

⁷⁶One of the first live elephants brought by the Portuguese from Africa which was offered by King Afonso V of Portugal to René the Good, duke of Anjou and count of Provence and seems to have been influential in representations of this animal by German artists during this period. Likewise, the Indian elephant offered by King John III of Portugal to Archduke Maximilian II of Austria in 1563 seems to have been influential in the depiction of this animal in the Low countries; see Lach (note 2), p. 133 and pp. 150–58.

⁷⁷On Francisco de Holanda, see S. Deswarte, Contribuition à la connaisance de Francisco de Holanda (Paris, 1974). A pen drawing of Hanno after a Raphael drawing which no longer survives has been found at the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. Authorship is unknown, and the copy presents obvious similarities with Holanda's pen drawing. However, it seems to be closer to Raphael's original. Giulio Romano and Giovanni da Udine have also made drawings of Hanno, either from life or on the basis of Raphael's drawings, Lach (note 2), p.142.

⁷⁸Quoted Costa (note 12), p. 46. Other animals included in the Portuguese embassy were an Indian elephant, a panther and a Persian horse.

⁷⁹Bedini (note 38), p. 115.

⁸⁰Quoted in Costa (note 12), pp. 46–47.

⁸¹ L. de Matos, ‘Forma e natura e costumi del rinoceronte, Boletim Internacional Bibliografia Luso-Brasileira 1(1960): 3387–398.

⁸²T.H. Clarke, ‘The iconography of the Rhinoceros from Dürer to Stubbs, The Connoisseur 185(1974): 113–22.

⁸³F.J. Cole, ‘The History of Albrecht Dürer's Rhinoceros in Zoological Literature’, in Science, History and Medicine, Science, History and Medicine; Essays on the Evolution of Scientific Thought and Medical Practice Written in Honour of Charles Singer, edited by E.A. Underwood (Oxford University Press, 1953), pp. 337–56. See also note 45.

⁸⁴The German original of the letter has been lost but a copy of an Italian translation exists in the Main Library in Florence. A translation is published in Costa (note 12), pp. 33–41.

⁸⁵M. Dagoberto, ‘O Rinoceronte do nosso rei de Portugal: estudo sobre a origem de uma gravura de Albrecht Durrer’, in Arte, História e Arqueologia, edited by P.G. Barbosa (Lisbon, 2006), pp. 161–76 (pp. 173–74).

⁸⁶Cole (note 46), p. 340.

⁸⁷G. Bolton, A Book of Beasts and Birds (London, 1903), pp. 38–42.

⁸⁸Dürer's image of the rhinoceros was promptly Incorporated in Conrad Gessner's Historia Animalium (Tiguri, 1555–1558).

⁸⁹See P.H. Smith and P. Findlen (2002), ‘Commerce and the Representation of Nature in Art and Science’, in Merchants & Marvels: Commerce, Science and Art in Early Modern Europe, edited by P.H. Smith and P. Findlen (New York), pp. 11–25

⁹⁰J. de Vasconcelos, Albrecht Dürer e a sua Influência na Peninsula (Coimbra, 1929), pp. 15–26. See also V. Pavão dos Santos, ‘O exotismo na vida portuguesa na época de D. Manuel’, Panorama, 32(1969), 84–93 (91–92).

⁹¹I.C. Almeida and R.A. Lino, O Rinoceronte: Pegadas na Torre (Lisbon, 1992), p. 47.

⁹²F. Sasseti, in,Lettere di Filippo Sasseti, edited by E. Marcucci (Florence, 1885), pp. 134–35.

⁹³J. Castilho, A Ribeira de Lisboa, 2 vols (Lisbon, 1941–48), II, p. 173.

⁹⁴See B.W. Oglivie, The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe (Chicago, 2006), pp. 139–208.

⁹⁵Linschoten stayed in Goa between 1583 and 1588.

⁹⁶Cook (note 6), p. 124.

⁹⁷F. Egmond, ‘Clusius and friends: cultures of exchange in the circles of European naturalists’, in Carolus Clusius, Towards a cultural histotory of a Renaissance naturalist, edited by F. Egmond, P. Hoftizer and R. Visser (Amsterdam, 2007), pp. 9–48.