Visual immersion: Daniele Barbaro's fish album and the wave of interest in aquatic creatures in mid sixteenth-century Europe

The mid sixteenth century wave of encyclopaedic publications about fish and other water creatures introduced massive numbers of newly made naturalia images. This article concentrates on the phase of image making and collecting that came before print. The focus is on the lost album with fish drawings created before 1551 by the Venetian humanist Daniele Barbaro and his personal painter Maestro Plinio. Naturalists such as Belon, Salviani and Aldrovandi borrowed and copied Barbaro's fish drawings. This case study indicates that a revolutionary visual turn took place before the 1550s in the domain of drawing, and was only in part connected with printing projects; that the notion of an encyclopaedic image collection of aquatilia was most likely inspired by innovations in botany; and that expert patron-collectors played a key role in it, setting visual trends and stimulating scientific passions.