{"id":675,"date":"2016-08-10T20:45:47","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T20:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/?p=675"},"modified":"2026-02-11T23:02:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:02:28","slug":"aldrovandis-illustrated-monsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/2016\/08\/10\/aldrovandis-illustrated-monsters\/","title":{"rendered":"Aldrovandi’s illustrated monsters"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

In August of 2016, a generous anonymous donor provided CC Special Collections with $18,000 for this important text on monsters:<\/p>\n

Ulysse Aldrovandi (1522-1605). Monstrorum Historia<\/em> (Bologna: Typis Nicolai Tebaldini, 1642).
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"aldrovandibinding\"<\/a> \"IMG_4156\"<\/a> \"IMG_4160\"<\/a> \"IMG_4173\"<\/a> \"IMG_4181\"<\/a> \"IMG_4184\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We purchased the book from Paul Dowling’s Maryland bookshop, Liber Antiquus<\/a>. After a telephone conversation invoking Liceti<\/a>, Piso<\/a>, and Pokemon, Paul sent us a couple of snapshots from the Aldrovandi Studio<\/a> in Bologna, showing bones and woodblocks displayed together — a sort of 17th century Pokedex<\/a>, if you will (those of you who are playing Pokemon Go probably will; the rest of you probably will not).<\/p>\n

\"aldrovandi<\/a> \"aldrovandi<\/a><\/p>\n

I told our anonymous donor that I couldn’t wait to show the book to students because it was going to blow their minds.<\/p>\n

I was right. Listen to the reaction of the first students at CC to see the book, a new student tour on August 10, 2016:<\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2016\/08\/monstersreveal.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Interest in monsters goes back a long way and shows no sign of stopping. See Allison Meier’s A Visual History of Society’s Monsters<\/a> for a nice overview. Her article includes a marvelous animated gif of the Aldrovandi monsters made by Kurosh ValaNejad, a film student at the University of Southern California (low-res version below, better version at Meier link):<\/p>\n

\"output_eAXyLV\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, no English translation of this text exists. A project for CC Latin students and faculty, perhaps? It would probably only take about twenty years to complete…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  In August of 2016, a generous anonymous donor provided CC Special Collections with $18,000 for this important text on monsters: Ulysse Aldrovandi (1522-1605). Monstrorum Historia (Bologna: Typis Nicolai Tebaldini, 1642). We purchased the book from Paul Dowling’s Maryland bookshop, Liber Antiquus. After a telephone conversation invoking Liceti, Piso, and Pokemon, Paul sent us a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cc-special-collections"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3q4oW-aT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/413"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":691,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}