Troubled Waters: Marcantonio Raimondi and Dürers Nightmares on the Shore

Abstract

Marcantonio Raimondis Il Sogno and Albrecht Dürers Sea Monster share a number of compositional similarities as well as a fascination with the bizarre. The association of monstrous forms as an omen of grave misfortune, including pestilence and war, was particularly common at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In Marcantonios engraving the chimeric monsters, billowing inferno and shooting star can be perceived as a graphic warning that by 1509 Venices world was in deep peril.