Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps Hardcover – Illustrated, 10 May 2013

interesting book for those awkward to get gifts for, very well received.

We received this beautiful book in the same week we ordered it. It will be a nice addition to our collection at the café.-Sea monster museum Bíldudalur, Iceland www.skrimsli.is

Beautifully illustrated and fun to read

You can judge this book by it's cover!This book is full of sea monsters on medieval and renaissance maps...I bought it because i like that sort of thing...It is a very nice book, lots of pictures...Only looked at a few times, how often do you really need to look at sea monsters on medieval and renaissance maps...I suppose it would be an ideal resource for art/illustration purposes...

Originally seen at British Library but bought here for a song... Beautifully illustrated, detailed book. A must have for maps and monsters fans

A great book, by a great author, dedicating his research to matters until now ignored!Highly recommended.

Really interesting and great fun.

Great book! And a well explained journey through maps and their monsters

This book is pure Art. Great.

A beautiful book, to say the very least. Van Duzer shows us how sea creatures - real, intended-to-be-real, and wholly imaginary - decorated maps from the earliest surviving Western examples, as much as 1,200 years old,. The practice may be much older.Van Duzer’s focus is on the sixth through tenth centuries. Maps were decorated with creatures real and fantastic to show believed dangers in specific areas, to emphasize the breadth and wonder of Creation, or just as decoration, especially on maps commissioned by the wealthy as art. The creatures are sometimes absurd, sometimes intriguing, and sometimes even believable (a swordfish and a whale on the Gough map of Britain, c. 1400, look perfectly accurate). An illustrated copy of Ptolemy’s Geography, made about 1560, was the pinnacle of sea monster art, including in its maps 476 creatures. Often creatures shown on maps turn up in other places, such as illuminated manuscripts, bestiaries, and church decorations.Monsters on maps declined in the more scientific era that followed the Renaissance, but the older maps left us some magnificent art as well as a window to the thinking of their times. Do any possibly indicate cryptozoological creatures, the modern sea serpents that never quite vanish into myth? Van Duzer does not address it, but there is something in here to match up with almost any maritime tale (I don’t know what one artist used a guide for a half-fish half-rooster, a literal chicken of the sea.)This is a great reference to the real and imagined monsters of the period as well as a thing of sometimes-breathtaking beauty. 299 endnotes add details to the main narrative.

Un libro molto bello (in lingua inglese), pieno di illustrazioni a colori. Credo che per gli appassionati di Storia (o anche solo per i curiosi) sia un testo da avere in casaLe foto rendono l’idea di come sia. Ho fotografato anche il sommario così è più facile rendersi conto della struttura del testo.

El libro es una excelente ventana a un mundo que dejó de existir hace unos siglos, en los que embarcarse en un viaje por el mar era realmente una proeza no exenta de tragedias, y en el que privaba el miedo sobre la lógica. El libro está perfectamente ilustrado, y es en sí un monográfico de los primeros mapas que se aventuraron a describir algo más que las costas y que retrataban los riesgos del mar en criaturas imaginarias que eran tan desconocidas como peligrosas. Una muy buena adición para cualquier biblioteca.

Very beautiful book on medieval and Renaissance monsters.Helps us in understanding the world view of the people of those times. Like all its other publications the British Library press has maintained it's exceptional standards in selecting the plates and text.Great value for money.