Mollusca

The title of Aldrovandi’s De reliquis Animalibus exanguibus libri quatuor post mortem ejus editi: nempe de Mollibus, Crustaceis, Testaceis et Zoophytis, demonstrates Aldrovandi’s adherence to Aristotle’s understanding of mollusca and crustacea as being two parts of four families of bloodless (invertebrates) animals – the other two being testaceans and insects (insects here being Arthropoda rather than Hexapoda, which Aldrovandi deals with separately in a volume specifically dedicated to insects).[1] As Vinarski notes, the modern understanding of the phylum Mollusca now covers most of what Aristotle included under ‘testaceans’ (Ostracoderma) and ‘mollusks’ (Malakia).[2] Despite Aristotle’s division between soft-bodied mollusca (Malakia) and mollusca with shells (Ostracoderma), he was, as Heppell makes clear, aware that there were definite differences between these groups and crustacea.[3]

Ulisse Aldrovandi, De reliquis Animalibus exanguibus libri quatuor post mortem ejus editi : nempe de Mollibus, Crustaceis, Testaceis et Zoophytis (Bologna, 1642), p. 266, nautilus shell.

As Karin Leonhard reminds us, ‘Shell collecting was one of the favourite pastimes of the 17^th century’.[4] Nautilus shells were particularly appealing to collectors such as Aldrovandi because they were exotic: he gave the provenance of this nautilus shell as being ‘from the Indies’ but it was most likely carved in China, possibly at Guangzhou.[5] Nautilus shells were considered rarities, and carved shells were often mounted and displayed as prize possessions in early modern cabinets of curiosities. As Grasskamp notes, there were two dominant motifs during the Renaissance: the first (as in Aldrovandi’s example), incorporated birds and botanical themes; the second was more figurative.[6] Scenes such as that on Aldrovandi’s shell were replicated on shells in other cabinets of curiosities, though with stylistic differences. In addition, European workshops, such as that at the court of Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549-1609), Grand Duke of Tuscany, also produced their own carvings. Aldrovandi believed that nautilus shells were produced by snail-like creatures, such as the following image which he included in his ‘testacean’ section.[7]

Ulisse Aldrovandi, De reliquis Animalibus exanguibus libri quatuor post mortem ejus editi : nempe de Mollibus, Crustaceis, Testaceis et Zoophytis (Bologna, 1642), p. 391, ‘Sarmatian sea snail’.

The ‘Sarmatian sea snail’, which was said to be a denizen of the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark, had first been described by André Threvet (1502–90), in his Cosmographie universelle (Paris, 1575). Threvet’s version found its way to Aldrovandi via the 1572 edition of the works of Ambroise Paré (c. 1510–90). Threvet describes this mythical snail as follows:

The Sarmatian, or East German, Ocean contains fishes that are unknown to hot countries, and very monstrous. Such is that which resembling a snail, equals a barrel in magnitude of body, and a stag in the largeness and branches of her horns: the ends of her horns are rounded as it were into little balls, shining like pearls, the neck is thick, the eyes shining like lighted candles, with a roundish nose set with hairs like a cat, the mouth wide, under which hangs a piece of flesh very ugly to behold. It goes on four legs, with many broad and crooked feet and has a long tail, and marks of different colors like a tiger, together serve for her fitness to swim.[8]

Gessner did not include the Sarmatian Sea Snail in his magnum opus (possibly because he had doubts about its existence), but Aldrovandi did – along with some other far more terrifying creatures of the deep from the same region such as the ‘Sea Serpent of Norway’ (in another of his volumes). Cochlea Sarmatica has not been seen since but as Johnson notes, its shell resembles that of Cassis Madagascariensis, which was certainly not an inhabitant of the Baltic region.[9]

Ulisse Aldrovandi, De reliquis Animalibus exanguibus libri quatuor post mortem ejus editi : nempe de Mollibus, Crustaceis, Testaceis et Zoophytis (Bologna, 1642), p. 16, octopus.

The inclusion of a mythical mollusc such as the ‘Sarmatian sea snail’ should not blind us to the importance of Aldrovandi’s De reliquis Animalibus exanguibus libri quatuor post mortem ejus editi: nempe de Mollibus, Crustaceis, Testaceis et Zoophytis, for our understanding of early modern malacology. As Leonhard notes, his text might include some imaginary animals, but that was due to his encyclopaedic intent, an intent which ensured that his text ‘set the standard for future generations’.[10]

He also included cephalopods, such as the octopus (in Latin polypus), whose named emphasized its ‘many feet’. Giant octopuses and squids had featured in a host of legends, and, as Muntz suggests, the mythical hydra, with its many heads, might have been an early attempt to describe an octopus.[11] Pliny the Elder (d. 79 AD), a major source (and inspiration) for Aldrovandi, emphasized their lethal nature: ‘no animal is more savage in causing the death of a man in the water; for it struggles with him by coiling round him and swallows him with its sucker-cups and drags him apart by its multiple suction, when it attacks men that are shipwrecked or are diving’.[12] However, Richard Elllis, of the American Museum of Natural History, argues that this reputation is undeserved, suggesting instead that ‘The octopus is, in fact, a gentle, curious creature with a surprising intelligence’.[13]

Chambered nautilus (Nautilus sp.) © Zoological Museum, Trinity College Dublin.

Chambered nautilus (Nautilus sp.). These ancient mariners of the deep sea, described as ‘living fossils’ have changed little in the last 500 million years. Living in coiled, chambered shells, these soft-bodied animals – distant cousins to octopus and squid – are active predators and scavengers, feeding on fish and crustaceans. The animal only lives in the outermost chamber of its shell. The other chambers are filled with gas that helps the nautilus remain neutrally buoyant, giving it the ability to hover in the water. To avoid predators, a small tube near the animal’s tentacles – known as a siphon – is used to expel water under pressure thereby creating a jet propulsion effect to thrust itself backwards at high speed.

Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris) © Zoological Museum, Trinity College Dublin.

Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris). The octopus may be the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. They are a blend of mental complexity in a very large sea of marine invertebrates. They may look very similar to squid, but they differ in several ways, notably by having nine brains: one central brain, and a smaller brain in each of their eight arms. With their half a billion neurons, they can count, make basic tools, be trained to carry out tasks, solve problems and communicate through recognised signals. What must it be like having eight appendages, so packed with neurons, that they can ‘think’ independently of each other?

Text: Dr Elizabethanne Boran, Librarian of the Edward Worth Library, and Dr Martyn Linnie, Curator of the Zoological Museum, Trinity College Dublin.

Sources

Ellis, Richard, Monsters of the Sea (New York, 1994).

Grasskamp, Anna, ‘Shell Connections: The Exoticization and Eroticization of Asian Maritime Material Culture’ in Anna Grasskamp (ed.), Art and Ocean Objects of Early Modern Eurasia. Shells, Bodies and Materiality (Amsterdam, 2021), pp 23–65.

Johnson, Richard I., ‘The Marvelous, Monstrous, Mythical Marine Mollusk, Cochlea Sarmatica Thevet, 1575’, Occasional Papers on Mollusks, Department of Mollusks, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 6, no. 82 (2002), 149–62.

Leonhard, Karin, ‘Shell Collecting. On 17th-Century Conchology. Curiosity Cabinets and Still Life Painting’, in Karl A.E. Enenkel and Mark S. Smith (eds), Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts (Leiden, 2007), pp 177–214.

Monod, Théodore and Jacques Forest, ‘A history of Crustacean classification’ in Monod, Theodore and Jacques Forest (eds), Treatise on Zoology – Anatomy, Taxonomy, Biology. The Crustacea, Volume 3 (Leiden, 2012), pp 403–44.

Muntz, W.R.A., ‘Giant octopuses and squid from Pliny to the Rev. Moses Harvey’, Archives of Natural History, 22, no 1 (1955), 1–28.

Pliny, Natural History, Books 8-11 translated by H. Rackham (Harvard, 2006).

^[1]Monod, Théodore and Jacques Forest, ‘A history of Crustacean classification’ in Monod, Theodore and Jacques Forest (eds), Treatise on Zoology – Anatomy, Taxonomy, Biology. The Crustacea, Volume 3 (Leiden, 2012), pp 403-44.

[2] Vinarski, Maxim V, ‘The birth of malacology. When and how?’, Zoosyst. Evol., 90, no. 1 (2014), 2.

[3] Heppell, David, ‘The long dawn of malacology: a brief history of malacology from prehistory to the year 1800’, Archives of Natural History, 22, no. 3 (1995), 304.

[4] Leonhard, Karin, ‘Shell Collecting. On 17th-Century Conchology. Curiosity Cabinets and Still Life Painting’, in Karl A.E. Enenkel and Mark S. Smith (eds), Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts (Leiden, 2007), pp. 177-214.

[5] Grasskamp, Anna, ‘Shell Connections: The Exoticization and Eroticization of Asian Maritime Material Culture’ in Anna Grasskamp (ed.), Art and Ocean Objects of Early Modern Eurasia. Shells, Bodies and Materiality (Amsterdam, 2021), p. 24.

[6] Ibid., p. 37.

[7] Ibid., p. 55.

[8] Johnson, Richard I., ‘The Marvelous, Monstrous, Mythical Marine Mollusk, Cochlea Sarmatica Thevet, 1575’, Occasional Papers on Mollusks, Department of Mollusks, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 6, no. 82 (2002), 156–7.

[9] Ibid., 151.

[10] Leonhard, ‘Shell Collecting’, p. 188.

[11] Muntz, W.R.A., ‘Giant octopuses and squid from Pliny to the Rev. Moses Harvey’, Archives of Natural History, 22, no 1 (1955), 3.

[12] Pliny, Natural History, Books 8-11 translated by H. Rackham (Harvard, 2006), p. 223.

[13] Ellis, Richard, Monsters of the Sea (New York, 1994), p. 261.