A History of Monsters. 321

difficult to recognize, or peculiar to a certain region, is called a "monster" among other nations. One example that stands for all is *Plica*, a disease common among the Poles, which is nothing more than a matting of the hair so inseparable that the hairs seem bound by a tenacious glue. This condition arises from a viscous and gummy substance; however, explaining the nature of this matter—where and when it is generated, and why it is sent to these parts rather than others—is not the purpose of this current work. One thing is certain: a few years ago in Bologna, there was a Polish woman suffering from this condition, and many flocked to see her as if she were a monster.

Furthermore, in the field of medicine, it is permissible to call it a monster when someone afflicted with a destructive, malignant, and lethal disease is abandoned by doctors as a hopeless case, yet recovers beyond everyone’s expectation. For this reason, Ovid sang with good cause: "Often the skillful care of doctors has failed a man; yet he does not perish, even as his pulse fades."

Monsters can also be related to human excrement. In people of a melancholic temperament, such humors are generated—so diverging from the nature of others—that they seem to be utter monsters. Because of this, Galen left written in his book *On Melancholy* that there were some melancholic individuals who believed they had swallowed something harmful when they vomited up certain abominable and monstrous things.

Next, we come to the invented and imaginary monsters of the poets, which require some attention. They recounted that Cassiopeia, the wife of Cepheus, was so puffed up by the radiance of her beauty that she boasted she was more beautiful than the Nereids. For this reason, it is said that the indignant nymphs obtained from Neptune the destruction of Ethiopia by a sea monster, and that the divine power of the Nereids could not be appeased unless Andromeda, Cassiopeia’s daughter, was exposed to the monstrous beast. Of this kind were the monsters into which the companions of King Picus were transformed by Circe, about whom Ovid sings in this manner: "That wicked woman sprinkles her poison and venomous juices; from their touch, the forms of various wild monsters overcome the youths, and for none did their own image remain."

Homer records similar monsters, such as the Cyclops living in a vast cave, eating human flesh and drinking milk instead of wine, in these verses: "But after the Cyclops had filled his great belly, eating human flesh and drinking pure milk atop it." That is to say: "Moreover, after the Cyclops had filled his great stomach, eating human flesh, and besides this, drinking unmixed milk."

Following this, other poets invented Cacus of the Aventine Hill, breathing a fiery breath and devastating the neighboring areas, whom Ovid mentions thus: "Cacus was the terror and disgrace of the Aventine woods, a no small evil to neighbors and guests. The man had a hideous face, his strength matched his body—a massive frame—and Mulciber [Vulcan] was the father of this monster."

Having said these things about the monsters of the poets, we shall proceed to weigh those humans who, by not maintaining the just measure of human stature in either greatness or smallness, are numbered among the monsters. These are the Giants, possessed of a vast mass in the proportion of their limbs and an upright conformation, whom the poets once imagined were born from the Earth. For this reason, Horace sang: "The Earth grieves, piled upon her own monsters, and mourns her offspring sent to glowing Orcus by the lightning bolt," etc.

Similarly, Pygmies, midgets, and dwarfs are placed in the category of monsters by some because of their tiny stature. Hunchbacks, the lame, the macrocephalic, and similar individuals do not escape this classification, although they are rarely not generated by nature, and sometimes do not depart greatly from the nature of their parents. In the same way, multiple births that approach the appearance of a dog, an ox, or other beasts seem not to decline much from the nature of their kindred; even though they do not entirely mimic