Bishop Bell's Behemoth, Or The Paleontological Prelate

Wow! Seems plausible to me. I presume you've seen pictures of the dwarf elephant fossils (from Sicily or Sardinia??) that are hypothesized to have started the Cyclops story? This is no more odd - and a reasonably complete dinosaur fossil would certainly have attracted some attention in 1500: "Look, dragon bones!!"The Classics Pages - Odyssey: Cyclops 2Edited by Coragyps, : add Cyclops link

I wouldn't expect that there was an entire fossil to work with - say, maybe a neck and head, and the artist used analogy to known animals to make his illustration.

I can't tell from the artwork in the OP whether the thing was hairy or not - certainly not shaggy, but cow-like hair is entirely possible. And dragon illustrations come in a lot of variety, though I can't say I've seen a fur-bearing one. Some old art shows them apparently without scales, though.

To my scant Latin those look like pretty standard funeral/memorial language: "Credo qd redemptor meus vivit et novissio die de terra surrectur" is sort of "I believe that my redeemer lives and {that I will ???}" No monstrous critter thay I can tell, anyway.