In the project to draw a history of ichthyological knowledge, as in the history of science in general, the thread of events can be divided between moments of gestation and decisive steps, and is also marked by points of no return, such as the arrival of images in the treatises of the first half of the 16th century.

In this chapter I would like to look at what happened between two of these milestones: the translation of Aristotelian natural history works by Theodore Gaza and the publication of the great natural history treatises between 1540 and 1560, with a particular focus on the treatises on aquatic animals, the aquatilia.

When one follows a chronological perspective, the risk is, of course, reading or placing an a priori direction on efforts that one would like to see concordant and unidirectional. The risk and temptation are all the greater in the history of science. Thus, in the present case, we could see a movement away from the ancient texts, towards a form of pre-modernity. Of course, in the 18th century naturalists freed themselves from Aristotle, but this was not the case in the 16th century. And secondly, even if such an angle of view could be justified in the context of the study of the changes taking place in the discipline of natural sciences, this perspective would leave in the shade valuable information on the reflections carried out by the authors and on their hesitations and attempts to define their method.

Thus, in order to get from our point A (Theodore Gaza) to point B (edition of the great natural history treatises of the Renaissance), I propose defining five stages, which should help us understand this path followed by the naturalists, specifying that I will focus on stages II and III, i.e. the first attempts to match the old names with the ocular descriptions.

1. Restoration of the ancient text

2. Cutting or sequencing of the text, addition of consultation tools (indices)

3. Synthetic monographs or essays by extension from ancient texts

4. Systematic confrontation of ancient text vs personal observations

5. Epistemological division toward new categories of knowledge

To sum it all up while avoiding the pitfall of anachronism in speaking of a linear overtaking of ancient texts during the 16th century, we could speak of “acculturation”, a term defined as follows:

Results from a multiplicity of micro-processes, invention, imitation, learning, or adaptation among thousands of interacting individuals and groups.¹

Acculturation does not apply primarily to the ancient text but to nature itself, which will now be read through a different prism and then catalogued according to a new grid. Let us add that the five stages we have defined are necessarily schematic; they partly overlap and present geographical and chronological shifts. But our division should allow comparisons to be made and a general trend to be discerned in the efforts of naturalists. It should be relevant because naturalists are themselves very attentive to the approaches of their predecessors in developing their method. The best example of this is Conrad Gessner, whose prefaces contain abundant comments on the whole process that interests us.

Let us take up our plan at point I, the restoration of ancient texts. The main contributor to this first stage is Theodore Gaza, from whom Gessner borrows a long extract of the preface to pay him a grateful tribute. It is very important for Gessner that this preface constitute a rhetorical performance defending the relevance of natural history, as Gessner highlights in a marginal note: ‘How physicians turn to natural history and for what purpose’.²

Thanks to Gaza’s plea, which defines a method by referring to Aristotle, natural history conquers its letters of nobility, even in the study of apparently insignificant beings. This shows a fact now well known, to which numerous re-editions of Gaza’s translation attest: the Byzantine did pioneering work. It also illustrates the fact that the phases are intimately linked: here again Gaza was decisive in the search for equivalences or Latin transcriptions from the Greek, ‘the most competent observer and imitator of the Plinian vocabulary of Greek equivalents of meaning’.³ More broadly, we owe him the efforts to bring the texts of Aristotle and Pliny closer together, thanks to his close collaboration with Giovanni Andrea Bussi, at a time when the latter was working on his edition of the Natural History, which was decisive in the history of the Plinian text.

The link established between works as different as Aristotle’s History of Animals and Pliny’s Natural History shows the early attempt to appropriate and transform the ancient texts, with the aim of developing a new key to understanding nature. Another very significant development on the Aristotelian source is the division into chapters that appears as early as the earliest editions of Gaza; the fact that there is no certainty that the division of the text is the work of Gaza himself is also important: it proves that there is a collective project to make adaptations to the ancient text, and that in the minds of its authors, this work is inseparable from the actual translation.⁴ Thus, these first two phases closely complement each other. In the minds of the commentators, there can be no restoration without adaptation, already at the level of the translation. These first two stages, restoration of the ancient text, then cutting up or sequencing the text, with the addition of consultation tools (indices or chaptering), still concern the linear text, considered in its entirety.

Subsequently, Gessner notes several authors of editions of different construction and situated in the years 1520–1530: he even hails the first of them, Paolo Giovio, as a precursor: according to the Zurich physician, the first work that corresponds to our third phase is Giovio’s De romanis piscibus, published in 1524 and reprinted several times until 1561, including an Italian version.⁵ The form and content of this small work are probably the reason for its success. Gessner is quite clear on this point in his ‘Praefatio candidis lectoribus’:

Paulus Iovius was the first of our time who began to develop [excolere] history of fish and to manage to produce pictures of them, as he reports himself, even if I think that he didn’t make them engrave for publication.⁶

In an almost identical sentence, he uses yet another verb to summarize Pierre Gilles’ work:

The Frenchman Pierre Gilles is in my opinion the first of our period after Paolo Giovio to have undertaken to illustrate [illustrare] natural history.⁷

What does Gessner mean by these two verbs, excolere and illustrare? A short survey of the Giovio book brings up some decisive elements. He proposes:

• To discuss the method and the difficulties.

• To compare about 40 Italian fish and their vernacular names with their ancient names.

• To report one’s own observations and anecdotes or testimonies.

• To deal with medical and dietetic matters.

History is to be taken in its literal sense of inquiry, which mobilizes wide and complex competences, and Giovio’s work, with its multifaceted approach, meets these requirements according to Gessner.

Another very important point is visible in the preface to De romanis piscibus: thanks to Giovio, natural history gained in prestige and became a literary genre of the court, an indispensable annotation for authors always in search of recognition and, above all, of funds to publish their works. The reading of this preface is enriching on this point. It is a real plea, written in a Latin imbued with Ciceronian terms, some examples of which are indicated by an asterisk*:

You advised me, who can also impose it, O illustrious and highly respected Lord, to write down the subtle and erudite dialogue which took place on the subject of Roman fish, when Pope Clement received you at a convivial meal for recreation, and such was the case, in the company of Cardinal Johannes Lotharingus, who is well known for his intelligence. The subject is difficult to know and to treat, because of the almost infinite diversity of fish, which has tired me, as well as many others quite curious, who are lost in sterile efforts; this is because of the incredible disagreement between the authors, due to the multiplicity of languages, and which have thrown an impenetrable veil of darkness* over this kind of study. This is why it is necessary that the mind, shaken by the difficulty of the mission, should not shrink back in fear, but should go deeper into the subject by devoting greater strength to method and judgement*.

But your merit, your greatness of soul, the refinement of your mind, combined with your inclination for the best culture, are such that I prefer to neglect my honour and my small notoriety* [gloriole], even if they are the fruit of liberal studies, for the entire benefit of your most noble will. But you may judge afterwards whether, having undertaken a project of such high demands and requiring such intellectual faculties, I have yielded to a guilty audacity, or whether I will not be held responsible, so that I appear estimable and obliging*.

Therefore, I wish this little work to be judged less severely by the more intransigent critics, since I have written it also in a spirit of levity and amusement, as it were in a bantering manner, while many have missed it at Saturnalia, dice games, and other such amusements, having recollected my former observations, and others which I have in part afterwards developed. This unfinished work, done in the leisure of a free man, will perhaps be the prelude to a complete and well-made work, if those who earn respect by letters and their labour, after having had it before their eyes, better examine what I shall have caught in my nets*, as it were, and after having been willing to give it more ornament by their more fruitful explanations*.

I shall certainly be considered as one who has brought a favour, to you first of all, and to those to whom it will have pleased*; once I have recovered from this pleasant amusement, I shall resume my habits of nightly vigils devoted to furthering this history, more firmly and with more zeal.

It is a fact that I shall shortly present to the public the first ten books of this laborious work, not without some aspiration to immortality, and moreover much increased and more abundant, if it should come to my attention that it has pleased you, as well as your King Francis, whom I have heard makes his pleasure of good letters.⁸

In the text itself, Giovio offers a combination of observations, erudite notations from ancient writings, and anecdotes borrowed from reliable witnesses who are often illustrious noblemen, court men, or ecclesiastics. This subtle alchemy gives a good idea of the courtly conversation that was popular at the time during hours of scholarly relaxation.

The best definition of this activity appears in Pierre Belon’s dedication of his Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins to “Monseigneur Monsieur le Reverendissime Cardinal de Chastillon, Liberal Mecenas des hommes studieus”:

[I] have described in our language the memorable things, and the riches of the earth of several strange countries where I have been, and the fertility of various seas, of which you have seen several portraits, of which it has pleased you to hear me speak; and knowing well that you have no greater pleasure than to employ the proper time in hearing things which are drawn from the intimate knowledge of natural history; and that you willingly give some hours of the day after meals, in discussing and hearing erudite talk which does not strain the mind.⁹

If the revival of botany in the Renaissance generally preceded the development of other fields of life because of its food and medical interest, ichthyology perhaps lends itself better to a culture that is both scholarly and entertaining: in addition to its food value, knowledge of aquatic world offers a taste for luxury and gastronomic refinement, and the innumerable and polymorphous people of marine monsters, an inexhaustible reservoir of anecdotes. Thus, in addition to having cleared the way for the new methodology in natural history, Giovio showed the way by bringing the discipline into the cultural sphere of the elites, a sine qua non condition for its economic and academic existence.

Gessner’s very positive opinion of Giovio contrasts strikingly with his opinion on another author, Niklaus Marschalk, author of the Historia aquatilium cum figuris, published in Rostock in 1520, and underlines a contrario what Gessner appreciates in the former:

Niklaus Marschalk’s Historia aquatilium […] was printed by himself in Rostock in 1520 in folio format; it is illustrated but with false and absurd images, such as are found in the books of Bartholomew the Englishman and other such inept writings on things of nature. It is a collection of elements borrowed from the ancients, in alphabetical order, devoid of any personal contribution, which contains neither observations in kind, nor any Germanic names; which surprises me greatly, although the author boasts of having made long voyages on the seas. He also promises a zoography, a history of wild beasts and one on birds, which I do not believe were ever published.¹⁰

If we sum up Gessner’s reproaches, Marschalk shows scarce, absurd, and mediaeval-like pictures, only collected facts without either any analysis or comment; he does not give any vernacular German name, and he promises never-published works.

As a matter of fact, when we look upon Marschalk’s text itself, we can notice the difference from Giovio’s text is strong. The first part of Historia aquatilium consists of 130 short chapters, presenting paraphrasis or summaries of antique fish’s natural history (life, habitat, reproduction, feeding, etc.). The chapter devoted to fish names – “Unde imposita piscibus nomina” – consists of 10 lines, where Marschalk does not discuss any philological problem, nor does he address any difficulty regarding the link between Greek and Latin terminologies. The unique translator or commentator he mentions is Gaza – ‘teste Theodoro’ – without adding any comment or personal observation:

According to M. Terentius Varro in Septumius, many names of fish are derived from those of land animals, such as anguilla, lingulaca, sudis, or from colours, such as asellus, umbra, turdus, or from the strength of animals, such as lupus, canicula, torpedo. Indeed, according to Pliny in Book IX of his Natural History, as we have written, all land animals have their equivalent in the sea. But their actual names are local, and they are foreign for others. Muraena, cybium, thynnus, melander, and uraeon are derived from the Greek; likewise, among shellfish, peloris, among oysters, echinus, and from the Greek still, polypus and hippopotamus. And from the vernacular, because of a similarity, syrene, pectunculi, ungues; for those which come on land, from Latin, mergus, rana and many others of this kind, but with new names.¹¹

As can be seen from the original Latin text given in the notes, there are also transcription errors reminiscent of those of medieval copyists, or interpretations of previous editions like the Aldine but without any comment, which is, of course, unacceptable to humanists. Gessner’s irritation could also be due to the inappropriate and, so to speak, usurped title of Marschalk’s booklet. On the contrary, Giovio shows modesty in his methodology, although he applies it only to a few dozen species; he does open the way to a true natural history, while showing modesty towards the prestigious ancient predecessors, the ‘Graeci authores qui naturae rerum abdita diligentissime perscrutati sunt’, and Pliny, who depicted a ‘tota natura ubique mirifice repraesentata’.¹²

The appearance of our third phase, manifested by the publication of monographs, is consecutive to this respectful attitude. Some passages are so complicated to elucidate that they lead the commentators to lengthy arguments that take on a form of autonomy, one might say by budding. Some of Giovio’s chapters already show this tendency towards autonomy, presenting developments so important that they unbalance the work by their length. The chapter on the sturgeon (Sturio) is no less than 30 pages long out of a total of 139, i.e. almost a quarter of the entire work: it constitutes, so to speak, a work within a work. It testifies to the acute need of the naturalists to deepen their investigations, so that the formal unity of their work becomes secondary.

In some cases, this type of work can even take on a metaphorical dimension, when the Systema naturae set up by naturalists reflects the social hierarchy. Attention is focused on noble species, whose natural history is expanded, while insignificant species are treated much more briefly. Pierre Belon’s Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins (1551), which incidentally still takes De romanis piscibus as its model, is in fact a direct tribute to François I. It focuses on the dolphin, which is the most important species of fish in the world. The other species are treated marginally and the whole structure of the work is subordinated to the centre of gravity constituted by the privileged status of the literally royal ‘fish’.

Now I have found a good opportunity to speak about the dolphin and other fish of its kind; I know well that it is a fish which holds the scepter of the sea and that it has been given the second rank in the French coats of arms and that it is the first after the fleurs-de-lis; I have decided to describe amply all the history which is appropriate to it, according to the particular observation of all its parts, both exterior and interior.¹³

Although he does not quote him, Belon seeks to follow the model of Giovio, who writes for a select audience; he writes a short work that is both scholarly and entertaining. The idea is understandable, especially since Belon is struggling to gain recognition as a scholar, after his skills as a Latinist and Hellenist were called into question. Nevertheless, this model of treatment of the subject is already obsolete. It was a time for great syntheses, as they had been appearing since the 1540s in the field of botany, headed by the German De natura stirpium by Leonhart Fuchs. This is undoubtedly why Gessner, who seeks to be moderate in his criticism, as we shall see later, mentions the work without any comment:

From the same author, the book in French on foreign marine fish and the dolphin, printed at the same place [Paris] by Chaulderon, in −4°.¹⁴

It is interesting to note that this inequality of treatment will persist even in the great treatises with a global claim, those of Gessner or Aldrovandi, whose chapters devoted to “important” or “noble” species can extend over dozens of pages.¹⁵

But for the time being, the genre of textual commentary continues to grow. The castigationes on the entire work are becoming more extensive, as in the case of Sigismund Gelenius, and are thus finally gaining their autonomy by appearing in works published separately from the ancient source, by the pen of Francesco Massario or Ermolao Barbaro, for example.

This third stage – “synthetic monographs” or “essays” – therefore sees the critical apparatus gradually move away from the ancient text. In parallel, the commentary develops well beyond the strict search for lexical equivalents of species names.

Beatus Rhenanus, in a dedicace introducing Massarius’s work, and Massarius himself, distinguish between the work of the grammaticus, which purifies language in general, and that of the doctus cognitione linguarum, whose mastery embraces ancient languages and vernacular correspondences, which are themselves useless without knowledge of the real species. It would seem that the “specialization” of the naturalist physician is emerging.¹⁶

The Venetian Francescus Massarius certainly made every effort, since he testified that he had examined this sea on voyages of exploration, so that you know that Massarius did not only transcribe these elements using books, many of which are insufficient, but he tested them by eye examination and his own experiences.¹⁷

And the subtitle of his book also says it well: it is now a question of knowing the aquatilia themselves and no longer only of finding equivalences in the appellations, in order to purify the texts, even if this knowledge also includes references to ancient texts:

Whoever you are, if you wish to study the nature of aquatic animals and gain a deeper knowledge of fish, buy this commentary by Massarius and read it. You will admire the labour and intelligence of a most brilliant man, who has long devoted the greatest pains to their study, for which scholars have greatly rejoiced.¹⁸

So, far from making Massarius into a somewhat timid scholar with only bookish knowledge, Rhenanus specifies that he himself sailed and had the fish he speaks of under his gaze. This precision on the activity of naturalists, which thus appears in the 1530s, will become an essential part of their task. Gessner emphasized this in connection with each author whose skills he praised.

Know-how anticipates the order of the matter. This was the case with Giovio, whose methodological preoccupations were hailed by all and were to become a school of thought for a long time, but whose work constitutes a disharmonious whole.

In the same vein, Giovio acknowledged that he could not follow his illustrious predecessor, Pliny, and be exhaustive in his descriptions of fish:

And I will not imitate to the end Pliny himself, my compatriot who, in order to express in Latin the discoveries of the Greeks, has magnificently represented nature in its entirety, not only with regard to the fish of the Mediterranean and the rivers, but also the very monsters that crisscross the entire ocean.¹⁹

And Belon almost echoes Giovio’s words:

Among the Greek authors, Aristotle, Porphyry, and Aelian have written several books on the nature of animals; Oppian on fish; Nicander on snakes; Pliny, among the Latin authors, has indiscriminately described almost all of them, here and elsewhere, taking from the above-mentioned authors and others, who have long observed them; however, I have not hesitated to choose the only dolphin from among all those of which I was aware, by searching for them in their birthplace, and I have set aside the description and painting of them.²⁰

This attitude is undoubtedly marked by humility, but it opens the door to research that is still partial but thorough and in-depth, and that will go beyond the geographical and methodological framework of the models of Antiquity. What remains from now on is the task of shaping this emerging knowledge.

In his history of the progress made and still to be made, Gessner also cites Pierre Gilles, and his double work, which brings together a form of translation of Claudius Aelian’s De natura animalium and a list of names of Marseilles fish, visibly inspired by De romanis piscibus:²¹

The Frenchman Pierre Gilles, is the first of our time, I think, after Paolo Giovio, to have improved the history of fish, having published a small treatise of the French and Latin names of the fish of Marseilles, […] in the format in 4°, by Sébastien Gryphe, in Lyon.²²

But let there be no mistake, this is no longer a corrected and annotated edition. In his dedication to King François I, Pierre Gilles speaks of a historiae naturalis nova periclitatio, a new experiment in the natural history of all the animals of France, a term used by Cicero in De natura deorum. Gilles has indeed made a new attempt to adjust the ancient text, both in line with Giovio’s model and with the intention of (re)thinking natural history. This appears in Gilles’ complete title: Historia de vi et natura animalium, per Petrum Gyllium tum ex Aeliano conversa, tum ex Porphyrio, Athenaeo, Heliodoro, Oppiano, tum ejusdem Gyllii marte, luculentis accessionibus aucta.²³

The chapters are made up of descriptive notes, devoted to species or groups of species, according to morphology or geography. But Gilles intersperses these with chapters on habits (food, habitat, reproduction, affinities and hatred between species, ways of catching species, etc.) or even more general groupings. The whole thing follows a generally decreasing order according to size, but it gives an impression of accumulation without any real order, which may make Gessner’s irritation understandable. Concerning the Aquatilia, Gilles’ chapters are:

• Whale and other cetes (following the example of Pliny and then Giovio, who place the largest aquatilia in first place)

• Tuna and catfish (silurus)

• Scolopendra cetacea

• Scaly fish

• Molles pisces

• Various fish

• Seal (vitulus marinus).

• Anglerfish (rana piscatrix) and other ‘flatfish’ (raies)

• Crustaceans

• Shellfish, sea urchins

• Fish division

• Nile fish

• Fish reproduction

• Fossils.²⁴

What are we to make of this recasting by Gilles? Certainly, Gessner acknowledges a certain posterity to Gilles. Guillaume Rondelet, he writes further on, followed his division in his own ichthyological writings. But Gessner adopts a much more severe tone on Gilles’ contribution to natural history in his edition of Aelian’s complete works. This time, the criticism is extensive and severe; we summarize it here:

• Gilles has neglected the order chosen by the author.

• He often deviated from the alphabetical order.

• He has not distinguished the species of the various genera.

• He has ruined the author’s arrangement and the effect of the charm due to the variety and pleasure [of the writing].

• Likewise, he has butchered Aelian’s associations justified by the quality or other common arguments between certain animals.

• He patched up the text.²⁵

In fact, Gessner reproaches Gilles for having lacked both discernment and respect for the form of the text (‘poemata elegantissime condata sunt’), the form which alone can have a heuristic value.

A final example for this stage shows better the direction in which naturalists should strive: reconciling the often concise references of the ancients, and the plurality of modern names: it is William Turner’s small critical glossary, whose title is both modest and explicit:

Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia. Ex optimis quibusdam scriptoribus contexta, scholio illustrata et aucta. Adjectis nominibus Graecis, Germanicis et Britannicis.²⁶

Admittedly, the book lacks species descriptions and illustrations, but the intention is there. The door is now open for the last two phases: the systematic confrontation of ancient text vs personal observations, and epistemological division toward new categories of knowledge. Gessner sees them emerging, incompletely but promisingly, in two authors: Wotton and Belon, whom he had cited for his first work.

The approaches of these authors complement each other in a way. The first allows Gesner to note that there is now a unitary procedure for the analysis of ancient texts:

Edward Wotton of Oxford edited a work titled De differentiis animalium libri X, printed in Paris by Vascosan in 1552 in folio format. Although he did not include any personal observations in his book and did not add anything to natural history in this respect, the work is nevertheless praiseworthy and worth reading: he has put in order many ancient writings and made them complement each other, so much so that they almost all seem to have been written by one author, with an equal and pure style; scholia and corrections have been made to many passages of the various authors, and finally, before coming to the explanation of the nature of the particular species, he has set forth in a very erudite manner explanations which may be called common and generic.²⁷

The second, Pierre Belon, is cited for his observations, collected in France and during his travels:

Belon is to be praised especially for having explored at length various little-known regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa, at great cost and risk to his life, on land and at sea, and thus made many discoveries unknown in our time and before. Thus, he has partly printed books about plants and animals and many other things, and the publication of the rest is eagerly awaited.²⁸

As we have seen, in his first ichthyological work, Belon still lacked methodological reference points. He claimed above all the rigour of his direct observations. He pointed out above all the repetition of erroneous information and not verified by eyewitnesses.

But very soon, in his second work on aquatilia, and then in the Histoire des oyseaux, Belon also engaged in a philological analysis and a comparison between the various ancient and modern sources on the one hand, and direct observations, his own or those of witnesses, on the other.²⁹ The influence of Gessner and the plural dimension that natural history took on in the mid-sixteenth century among naturalists in general can undoubtedly be seen here. However, Gessner does not welcome this development, as a discreet way of pointing out that Belon had not fulfilled his philological task.

Finally, it is Guillaume Rondelet who unified the two approaches:

Rondelet devoted the greatest energy to deciphering the true and ancient names of aquatic animals and to writing descriptions of them; moreover, he also himself travelled through the Belgian and Italian regions; he added to this a great erudition and an uncommon ability to clarify obscure or doubtful passages in the authors.³⁰

Gessner was well aware that he also had to promote his work, and that criticism of the approach or content of works published before his own was therefore also aimed at competitors. Even though he does not shy away from promoting his own treatment of the subject, the concern to develop a general methodology in natural history is nonetheless very real for him; moreover, he feels himself to be the target of attacks, and responds to them in a long ‘ad calumniatores’ argument. In his epistle to the reader, he poses as a moderator and openly addresses the issue of the serious rivalries between Belon and Rondelet on the one hand, and Rondelet and Salviani³¹ on the other, by emphasizing the positive aspects of the respective contributions of each. He undoubtedly did this in a spirit of appeasement, and his reputation, already well established at the time he wrote these lines, and the influence he exercised and would continue to exercise long after his death, clearly demonstrate that his work contributed, in the middle of the 16th century, to achieving a form of balance in the treatment of natural history.

The relationship with the ancient text had thus fundamentally changed; in a way, the relationship with the ancients had been appeased: the naturalists had established a methodology that clearly combined commentary and observation. The ancient text is respected, even if its contribution in terms of direct observation has become secondary. An essential dimension remained for the Renaissance scholar: the universal view of the ancients, which revealed the sacredness and harmony of nature, even in the form of the texts.

Naturalists have taken the measure of the ancient texts, and a distinction is now made between the form, content, and respective objectives of the two. However, a deep respect for the ancients remained, characteristic until the 17th century: knowledge of animals was a branch of natural history, whose primary purpose was to gain a better understanding of the divine work. This, in its immeasurable dimension, requires the pooling of everyone’s skills and the ordering of all the knowledge available to educated men. In the quest for universality, the Aristotelian and Plinian approaches, like the texts of the ancient poets, remain keys to the sacred dimension of nature.