TY - JOUR
T1 - The armadillo
T2 - Spain creates a curious horse to belittle America
AU - Beusterien, John
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies.
Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/1/2
Y1 - 2017/1/2
N2 - After seeing it for the first time in the Americas, sixteenth-century Spain sparked an armadillo craze across Europe. People bought household objects that contained an armadillo image and its image was produced on maps, in manuscripts and printed books. Elites collected carapaces in curio cabinets and then as display items in the first museums. Armadillo descriptions subsequently inspired the proto field of animal taxonomy. This paper explains why the armadillo was the premier European curiosity animal. Its features reminded people of a war animal—the horse—, and war technology—armour. The sixteenth-century Spanish natural historians Nicolás Monardes, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Martín Fernández de Enciso were the primary sources for this European fascination with the armadillo since they considered the armadillo a little armoured horse. My article also shows that the curiosity cult of the armadillo links to the discourse of race. In contradistinction to the prestige value of European armour and horse varieties, the emblem of the armadillo as little American horse served to belittle fauna and people from the New World.
AB - After seeing it for the first time in the Americas, sixteenth-century Spain sparked an armadillo craze across Europe. People bought household objects that contained an armadillo image and its image was produced on maps, in manuscripts and printed books. Elites collected carapaces in curio cabinets and then as display items in the first museums. Armadillo descriptions subsequently inspired the proto field of animal taxonomy. This paper explains why the armadillo was the premier European curiosity animal. Its features reminded people of a war animal—the horse—, and war technology—armour. The sixteenth-century Spanish natural historians Nicolás Monardes, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Martín Fernández de Enciso were the primary sources for this European fascination with the armadillo since they considered the armadillo a little armoured horse. My article also shows that the curiosity cult of the armadillo links to the discourse of race. In contradistinction to the prestige value of European armour and horse varieties, the emblem of the armadillo as little American horse served to belittle fauna and people from the New World.
KW - America
KW - Armadillo
KW - Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1478-1557)
KW - Horse
KW - King Philip II (1527-1598)
KW - Martín Fernández de Enciso (1470-1528)
KW - Nicolás Monardes (1493-1588)
KW - Raza (race and breed)
KW - Zoological curiosity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057115615&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/24741604.2017.1299412
DO - 10.1080/24741604.2017.1299412
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85057115615
VL - 1
SP - 27
EP - 52
JO - Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies
JF - Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies
SN - 2474-1604
IS - 1
ER -