It’s #LockdownBestiary #unicorn day! Unicorns (animal w/ a horn) are real & many! Some even have several horns. How many unicorn types were there & did horns have special qualities? Many medics, scholars & naturalists sought answers. #TheMonsterFiles #monsters #HistSTM THREAD.

Above egs show long visual history of unicorns: Indus Valley, 2600-1900 BCE. Stamp seal and modern impression: unicorn and incense burner, @metmuseum
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/324062 and

Pendant with Triton riding a unicorn-esque marine animal. German, Reinhold Vasters, c.1870–95. @metmuseumhttps://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/207258

Unicorns appear in medieval bestiaries. Associated with purity, innocence & chastity; if they met a virgin, they would go to sleep on their lap. The hunter in this 13thC eg is leveraging that habit @BritishLibrary
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=royal_ms_12_f_xiii_f010v

Iconic unicorn tapestry series, La Dame à la licornes! Late 15th/early16th C @museecluny https://www.musee-moyenage.fr/collection/oeuvre/la-dame-a-la-licorne.html

Here is a charming wild man riding a unicorn. Late 15th C, @rijksmuseum https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=unicorn&s=chronologic&p=1&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=1#/RP-P-OB-915,1

Narwhal tusk at @museecluny. Records place it in the treasury of the abbey of of St-Denis, just outside Paris, in 1495.

Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in terram sanctam (Mainz, 1498) contains this woodcut of some of the animals B saw on his trek to Jerusalem – more for our bestiary. @metmuseum

Pierre Pomet, Histoire générale des drogues… (Paris, 1694), liv. II, 9 hits the nail on the head: there was not one unicorn, but many! The unicorn’s horn was believed to be a poison antidote.

Horns of narwhals (sea unicorns, if you will) were popular collector’s items. You can see one in Ole Worm’s mid-17th C curiosity cabinet (back left, vertical, skull attached).

Today's naturalists continue to find new and species. Some will have medicinal properties. In this sense, we are not so different from earlier communities eager to learn about unicorns. END.

Thanks to our zoo-keeper extraordinaire, @eparpillee, for founding the #bestiary!