Miraculous Draught of Fishes?
What had piqued my interest was the new presentation of the Raphael Cartoons on the V&A’s website, where an interactive tool allows you to zoom in on high-resolution photographs of the monumental tapestry designs commissioned from Raphael in 1515. According to the site, the fisherman Simon (soon to be renamed St Peter) has caught the following types of fish: barbels, John Dory (also known, appropriately, as St Peter fish), sardines, sea bream, sea eels, shark and skate. Raphael or his assistants knew something about fish, then, but did they know what St Peter might have caught? Perhaps not: the Sea of Galilee is actually freshwater (it’s also known as Lake Tiberias or Kinneret), but the fish caught by Christ’s apostles here, barbels aside, are saltwater creatures.