Posted on 09/09/2004 9:07:01 PM PDT by Doctor Stochastic
The shark was gigantic, but the fishermen managed to haul it ashore. It was still alive and struggling, so to keep it on the beach they lashed it to a tree. Then they killed it. Sharks were common enough off the Tuscan coast, but this was a lamia, a Great White, and it weighed over a ton. When it was safely dead, several of the fishermen reached into the shark’s horrible mouth and with their knives gouged out teeth for souvenirs and charms.
Word of the marvel reached the Medici palace in Florence. The Grand Duke Ferdinand II, an aficionado of natural history, ordered that the shark be brought at once so that his court scientists could examine it. But it was too huge, and its flesh had already begun to putrefy. The fishermen hacked off the head and threw the rest of the corpse into the sea. The head was loaded onto a cart to be sent up the valley of the Arno to Florence.
The year was 1666. Florence, indeed all of Europe, was in a state of transition. The Renaissance had pretty much run its course. The Protestant Reformation was a done deal. The Age of Enlightenment, on the other hand, was barely on the horizon. It was an awkward, in-between age – reborn, reformed, but not yet enlightened.
(Excerpt) Read more at alan-cutler.com ...
Another book I found interesting. Nicolaus Steno is an interesting character. (He also signed his name as: Nicolai Stenonis, Niels Stensen, etc.)
The book is as interesting for its description of the time (1666 and all that) as for the biographical information.
Its interesting how the course of events can be gently nudged in a new direction by the actions of just one person.
Well, Leonardo's work on fossils wasn't known very well but the "Brothers of Purity" (10th C Shiite group) did have pretty good desription in their encyclopedia. (They didn't do as well as Steno and the Mongols destroyed the entire intellectual infrastructure in the Islamic world; it still hasn't been rebuilt.)
Steno and Hutton were really good observers.
Thanks for the ping and the book recommendation!
Good. Very good. Thanks.
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