'Roc': An Eastern Prodigy in a Dutch Engraving

Abstract

The great geographical discoveries stimulated not only scientific cartography but also the pictorial rendering of life and customs in remote countries. The origin of that new branch of illustrative art which finally links up with the modern 'picture-reportage' can be traced back to the fifteenth century when Gentile Bellini reliably depicted oriental people. In the sixteenth century innumerable illustrations of ethnographical interest were produced-referring mainly to peoples of the Old World. We only need recall the long series of 'Books of Costumes', the many illustrations of the life of the Turks, and journeys such as Herberstein's to Russia. Not before the seventeenth century, however, did the pictures illustrating the 'New World' gain some scientific value (e.g. in the works of the publisher de Bry). Among the latest works of the Italianised Dutch painter Johannes Stradanus (15231605) one finds a series of engravings which glorify the discoverers of the American continent : Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci and Fernao de Magellan.' Although this series is of no great artistic value, it attracts our attention because of its rich conglomeration of symbolical details. In each of the engravings the ship with the idealized figure of the hero is surrounded by a number of figures and animals which by their peculiar mixture of realistic, emblematical, and mythological features, are meant to illustrate the discoverer's special achievement. The Magellan engraving (P1. 33c), the only one which we shall attempt to analyse-shows, next to the boat, the hovering figure of Sol-Apollo. His appearance is explained by the inscription : Magellan by his journey round the earth was the first to emulate the sun. In the air Aeolus is enthroned, sending a favourable wind, a siren and strange fish illustrate remote seas, naked savages provide the ethnological touch. So far so good. But the artist meant more than that, as can be seen from the dramatic account by Antonio Pigafetta--one of Magellan's companions-of the conquest of the east-west passage in the south of the American continent. The geographical allusions of the engraving become intelligible by means of this text, which was evidently known to Stradanus through Ramusio's standard word, Delle Navigationi et Viaggi.2 The fires to the' left signify Fireland which lies to one's left coming from the Atlantic ; the giant to the right thrusting a spear into his own mouth is an inhabitant of Patagonia, and therefore indicates the northern shore of the Magellan Straits. Pigafetta narrates that they found Patagonia inhabited by a race of giants, and he gives some curious information about the drastic remedies employed by these savages : being indisposed they introduce a spear into their throat, a cure which has-as can be easily imagined-a quick success. It is evident that the artist intended to depict the most decisive moment of Magellan's journey : the appearance of the open Pacific at the western end of the Straits. Sol, whom Magellan emulates in his journey, leads the ship. In the parallelism of the heavenly and the earthly courses the old macrocosm-microcosm conception is still effective. The most fantastic part of the engraving is the group in the upper left corner : a bird of excessive size carries an elephant through the air. Is this strange design a pure invention of the artist ? Certainly not. It depicts the miraculous bird 'Roc' which Pigafetta describes in a later phase of the journey. According to him its home is the Chinese Seas. We can trace the roc's migration and transformation with a certain degree of certainty. Stradanus's picture is derived from a very old oriental conception, the cosmological origin of which we know. It is the fight between the Indian solar bird Garuda and the chtonic snake Naga. The Indian word Naga means not only snake but also elephant.3 Indiologists can probably explain at which crossway of mythical consciousness the naga as elephant was distinguished from the naga as snake. Garuda carrying off the naga-elephant appears in the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahgbhirata (I, I353) and the Rimayana (III, 39). In both cases 'The first sheet with the inscription: Ioannes Stradanus inven., Adrianus Collaert sculp., Joan Galle excudit, and with Stradanus' dedication to the brothers Lodovico and Luigi Alamanni. Notes on the Alamanni (a noble family of Florence) which we could not examine, in Florence, Bibl. Naz., Carte del Passerini, No. 44. One of the brothers seems to be a writer Luigi who lived from 1558-1603. The series cannot have been issued long before 1590. (Engraver Collaert : ca. 156o-1618. The edition which we are using, arranged in the seventeenth century by Ioan Galle [I6oo-I6751). 2 Primo volume e seconda edizione, 1554, P. 407. SCf. A. de Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, I872,