Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps is exactly what you’d expect: an art book full of images of sea monsters from old medieval maps. Rather than being a history of all images of sea monsters, which might include victorian images and book illustrations, it focuses on the original source materials and how the imagery is replicated through time.
The author has written a number of books on old maps, and his knowledge shows- the text is as fascinating as the images, as it explains various business interests that influenced the use of imagery in different centuries in context. Contrary to what you might think, images range from fanciful to state of the art scientific thinking (especially when relating legends regarding whaling and walruses). Many of the images are close-ups of small sections of maps, making this a great reference book and conversation piece.
