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| | Giornale Nuovo: Aldrovandi’s Watercolours |
 | | The work’s illustrations were to be drawn from the hundreds of watercolour paintings that Aldrovandi had commissioned from a number of artists, over a period of some thirty years. |
 | | As part of their on-line presentation of Aldrovandi’s work, the University of Bologna have scanned a large number of these watercolours, a few of which I have selected for display here. |
 | | Plants, sea-creatures, serpents, birds, domestic beasts, exotic creatures, ‘monsters’ (deformed animals, freaks of nature, conjoined twins, etc.) are all depicted in these watercolours, as are fantastic fauna, such as dragons, whose existence one supposes had not yet been altogether disproved. |
| www.spamula.net /blog/archives/000390.html (369 words) |
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