And the frowning swimmer in the lower right is a pretty recognizable dolphin, even if it's uncharacteristically grumpy for a cetacean. The winged fish in the upper right does bear a resemblance to a real animal, albeit an extinct one: an Iniopterygian. Originally published in: Americae Sive Qvartae Orbis Partis Nova Et Exactissima Descriptio His Catholic disdain for Protestants was more than reciprocated, with Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon distributing pictures of a "pope-ass" and a "monk-calf." Besides claiming thousands of lives, Europe's religious divisions in the 16th and 17th centuries caused a renewed interest in monsters ( sea bishops proliferated) with Christians of both flavors blaming each other for the weird new creatures. Remaining a Catholic, Olaus was evetually named Archbishop of Uppsala, though he had hardly any fellow believers to oversee there he and his brother had already moved to southern Europe. The naturalist had been born a Catholic, but his homeland of Sweden, like most of northern Europe, was Protestant by the time he produced his map so rich in sea monsters. For it had a Hog's head, and a quarter of a Circle, like the Moon, in the hinder part of its head, four feet like a Dragon's, two eyes on both sides of his Loyns, and a third in his belly inkling toward his Navel behind he had a Forked-Tail, like to other Fish commonly." Olaus Magnus then went on to compare the beast to heretics who, he believed, lived like swine.
Now appears in: Sea Monsters by Joseph NiggĪfter pointing out that a "monstrous Fish" appeared off the coast of England in 1532, Olaus Magnus wrote, "Now I shall revive the memory of a monstrous Hog that was found afterwards, Anno 1537, in the same German Ocean, and it was a Monster in every part of it.