Olaus Magnus’ Carta Marina: Sea monsters on a gorgeous Renaissance map. - Slate Magazine

 

 

An interactive Renaissance map filled with strange and wonderful monsters. 

 By Joseph Nigg 

When the chart was made, in the early years of the Age of Exploration, there was a lingering belief in the existence of griffins, unicorns, dragons, the phoenix, the monstrous races, and a host of other unnatural creatures. Modern science was in its infancy. Although adherents to the direct observation of nature would soon challenge hearsay and tradition and begin to classify animal life, at the time the medieval imagination was still free to shape its own forms of the natural world. The chart’s giant lobster gripping a swimmer in its claws, a monster being mistaken for an island, and a mast-high serpent devouring sailors would have represented actual fears of the unknown deep.

see the map and click on the monster to learn more
Olaus Magnus’ Carta Marina: Sea monsters on a gorgeous Renaissance map. - Slate Magazine: