I have seen the foolish taking root... Job 5:3
"Few specimens of apes from Africa and Asia arrived in Europe
during the early modern period, allowing confused speculation as to the nature of these animals to grow.
In the 16th century one of the best illustrated works on zoology was Conrad Gesner’s Historia Animalium, first published in 1551. This book depicted many exotic animals with remarkable accuracy, including monkeys and apes.
Mixed in with these was an illustration of a large monkey (Cercopithecus) that was a virtual copy of Breydenbach’s image of 1486, a long-tailed monkey standing with the stature and form of a man with human-like arms and legs, holding a staff and leading a camel.
Gesner referred to his drawing as a hairy satyr with human-like form. The words underneath Breydenbach’s drawing “Non constat de noĩe [nomine]” implied there was no agreement about the name of the animal.
Breydenbach’s image was possibly derived from an ancient Egyptian iconography of the god Thoth, sometimes portrayed as a baboon with a staff.
It may also be a rather poor illustration of the hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas). Gesner also used the testimony of ancient Greek scholars such as Megasthenes, who referenced observations of monkeys in India, and like Breydenbach illustrated his drawing with the face of an ape.
In the early 17th and 18th centuries apes and monkeys from various continents were collectively known as orang-outang, with much speculation as to their origins.
Dutch anatomist, Nichalaas Tulp, had the opportunity to examine either a chimpanzee or bonobo that had been brought back on a trading ship, most likely from Angola, but with doubt as to its origin. This was a gift for the pleasure of the Prince of Orange, Frederick Henry. Tulp referred to this animal as an orang-outang (from the Malay language) or Homo sylvestris. He gave the specimen the name Satyrus indicus, thus adding some. confusion
regarding its true nature, but evidently with influence from Pliny’s description.
The image appeared in Observationes Medicae, sometimes referred to as a book of monsters because of its graphical depiction of various physical disorders, published in 1652.
Another book of monsters was published in 1642 by Ulysses Aldrouandi entitled Monstrorum Historia. Aldrouandi depicted (as male and female) the Cinnaminiae gentis, a dark-coloured human being covered in hair, which he described as “hominum sylvestrium”; that is wild man of the forest. He placed the satyrs in the same group, and depicted various forms including goat-footed and feline forms.
Jacob de Bondt (Jacobus Bontius), from his travels to Java, also graphically illustrated an ‘Ourang Outang,’ or wood-man (Homo silvestris) with the characteristics of a hairy human female, remarkably similar to that of Aldrouandi.
This work was written in 1631, but first published by Willem Piso in 1658, after Bondt’s death, and after Tulp’s account of the chimpanzee.
Bondt claimed to have seen first-hand both sexes walking on two feet, and that the females showed some human emotions and modesty. These beings he likened to the satyrs of Pliny, believing further that they were actually human-ape hybrids.
He relayed indigenous claims that they could talk, but merely did not want to out of fear of forced labor, although he likely copied such claims from Richard Jobson’s The Golden Trade (1623).
Bondt’s sightings, if real, were most probably of the orangutans, but he appears to have borrowed from other authors. More significantly.... Bondt’s drawing, evidently adapted from the images of Aldrouandi, Genser, and Breydenbach, had an extraordinary career as an illustration in zoological literature across Europe, over a period of two centuries.
In England in 1698 Edward Tyson, an anatomist and member of the Royal Society, had an opportunity to dissect an imported chimpanzee, referring to it as a pygmie.
He compared his dissection with human anatomy, and existing knowledge gained from studies of apes (albeit not especially accurate ones). He concluded that his specimen was probably the closest possible link between ape and man. He thought it was able to walk upright, had speech organs similar to humans, and a sizeable brain, but at the same time it was still an animal because there was no evidence that it was capable of speech.
Unfortunately, by calling his specimen a pygmy he blurred the distinction between apes and humans. The pygmy seems to have been understood from antiquity as a tribe of dwarf humans."
CMI
"Few specimens of apes from Africa and Asia arrived in Europe
 |
| From left to right: (a) Tulp’s drawing of his orang-outang in Observationes Medicae 1652; (b) Aldrouandi’s female Homo sylvestris—foemina cinnaminiae gentis in Monstrorum Historia 1642; (c) Bondt’s drawing of an orang outang in Account of the Diseases, Natural History… 1658; (d) Hoppius’ TROGLODYTA Boentii in Anthropomorpha, 1763. |
In the 16th century one of the best illustrated works on zoology was Conrad Gesner’s Historia Animalium, first published in 1551. This book depicted many exotic animals with remarkable accuracy, including monkeys and apes.
Mixed in with these was an illustration of a large monkey (Cercopithecus) that was a virtual copy of Breydenbach’s image of 1486, a long-tailed monkey standing with the stature and form of a man with human-like arms and legs, holding a staff and leading a camel.
Gesner referred to his drawing as a hairy satyr with human-like form. The words underneath Breydenbach’s drawing “Non constat de noĩe [nomine]” implied there was no agreement about the name of the animal.
Breydenbach’s image was possibly derived from an ancient Egyptian iconography of the god Thoth, sometimes portrayed as a baboon with a staff.
It may also be a rather poor illustration of the hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas). Gesner also used the testimony of ancient Greek scholars such as Megasthenes, who referenced observations of monkeys in India, and like Breydenbach illustrated his drawing with the face of an ape.
In the early 17th and 18th centuries apes and monkeys from various continents were collectively known as orang-outang, with much speculation as to their origins.
Dutch anatomist, Nichalaas Tulp, had the opportunity to examine either a chimpanzee or bonobo that had been brought back on a trading ship, most likely from Angola, but with doubt as to its origin. This was a gift for the pleasure of the Prince of Orange, Frederick Henry. Tulp referred to this animal as an orang-outang (from the Malay language) or Homo sylvestris. He gave the specimen the name Satyrus indicus, thus adding some. confusion
 |
| Tyson’s Pygmie in Orang-Outang, sive Homo sylvestris…, 1699 |
The image appeared in Observationes Medicae, sometimes referred to as a book of monsters because of its graphical depiction of various physical disorders, published in 1652.
Another book of monsters was published in 1642 by Ulysses Aldrouandi entitled Monstrorum Historia. Aldrouandi depicted (as male and female) the Cinnaminiae gentis, a dark-coloured human being covered in hair, which he described as “hominum sylvestrium”; that is wild man of the forest. He placed the satyrs in the same group, and depicted various forms including goat-footed and feline forms.
Jacob de Bondt (Jacobus Bontius), from his travels to Java, also graphically illustrated an ‘Ourang Outang,’ or wood-man (Homo silvestris) with the characteristics of a hairy human female, remarkably similar to that of Aldrouandi.
This work was written in 1631, but first published by Willem Piso in 1658, after Bondt’s death, and after Tulp’s account of the chimpanzee.
Bondt claimed to have seen first-hand both sexes walking on two feet, and that the females showed some human emotions and modesty. These beings he likened to the satyrs of Pliny, believing further that they were actually human-ape hybrids.
He relayed indigenous claims that they could talk, but merely did not want to out of fear of forced labor, although he likely copied such claims from Richard Jobson’s The Golden Trade (1623).
Bondt’s sightings, if real, were most probably of the orangutans, but he appears to have borrowed from other authors. More significantly.... Bondt’s drawing, evidently adapted from the images of Aldrouandi, Genser, and Breydenbach, had an extraordinary career as an illustration in zoological literature across Europe, over a period of two centuries.
In England in 1698 Edward Tyson, an anatomist and member of the Royal Society, had an opportunity to dissect an imported chimpanzee, referring to it as a pygmie.
He compared his dissection with human anatomy, and existing knowledge gained from studies of apes (albeit not especially accurate ones). He concluded that his specimen was probably the closest possible link between ape and man. He thought it was able to walk upright, had speech organs similar to humans, and a sizeable brain, but at the same time it was still an animal because there was no evidence that it was capable of speech.
Unfortunately, by calling his specimen a pygmy he blurred the distinction between apes and humans. The pygmy seems to have been understood from antiquity as a tribe of dwarf humans."
CMI