Basilisk

This basilisk was made using a small angel shark possibly by Leone Tartaglini. The basilisks or chimeras are fantastic animals whose alleged relics were sold as real at high prices, in fact the results of the manual ability of skillful forgers, who were combining with mastery parts of different animals to form artificial monsters. Tartaglini was a Tuscan expert taxidermist who lived in Venice in the mid-sixteenth century, who owned a "theater of the various natural things" also including basilisks.