Cultural depictions of salamanders

The salamander is an amphibian of the order Urodela which once, like many real creatures, often was suppositiously ascribed fantastic and sometimes occult qualities by pre-modern authors, as in the allegorical descriptions of animals in medieval bestiaries.

Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae of 1758 established the scientific description of the salamander and noted[2] the chief characteristics described by the ancients: the reported ability to live in fire, and the oily exudates.

The aftereffects of ingestion included symptoms of "inflammation of the tongue, chills, trembling of the joints, livid welts, and lack of mental lucidity".

[21][22] Pliny described the salamander "an animal like a lizard in shape and with a body specked all over; it never comes out except during heavy showers and goes away the moment the weather becomes clear.

[26][1] Note that Pliny offers this explanation in one part of his work,[17] while elsewhere he disbelieves the premise that the salamander has such fire-quenching capability, pointing out that if such an idea were true, it should be easy to demonstrate.

[25] The extent of these properties is greatly exaggerated though, with a single salamander being regarded as so toxic that by twining around a tree it could poison the fruit and so kill any who ate them and by falling into a well could slay all who drank from it, and also infect bread baking on the kiln by touching the wood or stone underneath it.

[e][19][18][29] Roughly contemporary with Pliny is a bas-relief of a salamander straddling the cross-beam of a balance scale in an anvil-and-forge scene found in the ruins of the Roman town of Pompeii.

[13][f] Saint Augustine (354–430) in the City of God based the discussion of the miraculous aspects of monsters (including the salamander in fire) largely on Pliny's Natural History.

[38][1] The Physiologus thought to have been originally written in Greek by an author in Alexandria was a treatise on animals in the Christian context, and the antecedent of the later medieval bestiaries.

[51] Bestiaries After the end of the Classical era, depictions of the salamander became more fantastic and stylized, often retaining little resemblance to the animal described by ancient authors.

[56] German polymath Albertus Magnus described the incombustible asbestos cloth as "salamander's plumage" (pluma salamandri) in his work.

§ Transmission of salamander-asbestos cloth lore below) Titurel There seems to be a confused use of the salamander, as the symbol of passionate love and its opposite, its dispassionate restraint.

[69] Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) wrote the following on the "salamãndra" : "This has no digestive organs, and gets no food but from the fire, in which it constantly renews its scaly skin.

[72] Thomas Bulfinch in his commentary about Cellini's encounter explains that a salamander exudes a milky substance when frightened, which could plausibly protect it long enough to survive the fire as it scurried away.

[91] Its association with Paracelsus derives from his Auslegung der Magischen Figuren im Carthäuser Kloster zu Nũrnberg in which the author presents explanations of some illustrations found in a Carthusian monastery in Nuremberg; the illustration in question he labels as "a salamander or abominable worm with a human head and crowned with a crown and a Pope's hat thereon",[92] which is later explained to represent the Pope.

The text in German states the salamander while in fire exhibits an excellent color hue, while the Latin inscription connects this to the philosopher's stone (lapidis philosophorum).

[96] But in the Book of Lambspring inserted into Lucas Jennis Musaeum Hermeticum (1625), an illustration with the same composition (man holding a polearm) depicts the salamander as a lizard-like animal with star-like markings (see right).

[97] Conrad Gessner provided two illustrations of the salamander in his work, one realistically lifelike, the other fanciful (with mammal-like head), for comparison.

[109] There was also a supposed black and yellow lizard known as lebraude locally, with similar attached lore: it only breathed once every 24 hours, but the exhalation killed any humans or plants or trees.

The spirit announced his gratitude to the townsfolk, and thereafter would warn them of an outbreak of fire by flying above the house in danger in the guise of a pyramid and serpent, and came to be called Feuerpuhz, a name that alludes to blowing of air, or swooshing out of a bottle.

[114] Laufer notes that Arab or Persian writers gave a mixed description of their versions of the salamandar, written samandal or samandar, sometimes as a bird or phoenix, but also as a marten-like animal, said to yield cloth which can be laundered in fire, similar to Chinese lore.

[115] Such description of "samandar" as marten-like and yielding incombustible cloth was attested by the writer (Lutfullah Halimi,[116] d. 1516) cited by d'Herbelot[117] and (as "samandal") by al-Damiri (d.

The earliest attestation in medieval Europe of associating the salamander with an unburnable cloth occurs in the Provençal Naturas d'alcus auzels (13th century) according to Laufer.

[121] Also the German scholar Albertus Magnus had called the incombustible cloth pluma salamandri ("salamander's plumage") in his work.

"[29] Randle Holme III (1688) wrote: "...I have several times put [salamander hair] in the Fire and made it red hot and after taken it out, which being cold, yet remained perfect wool".

[29][124] An alternative interpretation was that this material was a kind of silk: A 12th-century letter supposedly from Prester John says, "Our realm yields the worm known as the salamander.

[125] Marco Polo still employed the term "salamander" but recognized this was no creature, but rather an incombustible substance mined from earth, and had visited the production site.