2020 Essays

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride: From Bestiary to Shop Manual

Demeter, Béla

In sixteenth-century Europe, animals often served as allegorical embodiments of moral principles, while toads and vipers, in particular, were valued primarily for their putative medicinal value. In a marked departure from these conventions, the author-practitioner records his thoughts on capturing, restraining, maintaining, and killing these animals. Although not a natural historian by vocation, in the course of casting amphibians and reptiles from life into objects of art, he amassed considerable knowledge of the habits and characteristics of this often spurned class of animals, especially of vipers. The few people who dealt with these animals—including other artisans, viper catchers, and apothecaries—did not record their observations. In this essay, I survey the author-practitioner’s forays into herpetological husbandry, capture techniques, and methods of euthanasia. I compare these observations with the few other accounts from the time, which do not contain the detail or accuracy found in Ms. Fr. 640.