Peter Martyr d’Anghiera’s Decades on Caribbean marvels

Record summary

Peter Martyr’s De Orbe Novo collects reports from the first Spanish voyages and settlements in the Caribbean and adjacent mainland regions. Its descriptions of strange animals, transformations, and marvels are relevant to comparison with early modern aerial-creature traditions, especially because the work helped establish New World wonders in European print. It is not a field report by a zoologist: Martyr relied on letters and informants, and his humanist style encourages dramatic presentation. Researchers should identify the original informant and geographic setting of any alleged winged-creature passage.