Name/Title
CE 1638 Ulisse Aldrovandi, Cyprinus Monstrosus (Monster Carp with Human Face)Description
Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605)
From De Piscibus Libri V
Edited by Bartolomeo Ambrosini
Bologna: Nicolò Tebaldini, 1638
Woodcut and letterpress on laid paper with hand coloring
p. 640
This leaf from the posthumous 1638 edition of Ulisse Aldrovandi’s De Piscibus depicts the Cyprinus monstrosus, a purported anomalous carp combining the body of a fish with a human-like face. The image appears within Aldrovandi’s discussion of unusual forms of Cyprinus.
Aldrovandi’s extensive natural-historical project sought to collect and organize information about animals from specimens and observation as well as ancient and contemporary texts, illustrations, correspondence, and reports supplied by other observers. His books consequently preserve both recognizable species and unusual or purported creatures whose existence or characteristics could not necessarily be independently verified.
The Cyprinus monstrosus belongs to the early modern study of monstrous or anomalous births and organisms. Such specimens were not necessarily regarded as belonging to entirely separate mythical species. Naturalists collected reports of unusual bodies and developmental abnormalities as part of the investigation of nature and its possible variations. At the same time, dependence upon textual reports and copied images could make it difficult to distinguish actual abnormalities from misidentification, exaggeration, or fabrication.
Aldrovandi died in 1605 with substantial portions of his work unpublished. De Piscibus Libri V was prepared posthumously under the supervision of the Bolognese physician and naturalist Bartolomeo Ambrosini and published by Nicolò Tebaldini in 1638. The leaf therefore preserves material associated with Aldrovandi’s sixteenth-century natural-historical project in its seventeenth-century published form.Create Date
August 1, 2026Update Date
October 4, 2026
