380 Ulisse Aldrovandi

afterwards, as suppuration was gradually induced, was finally extracted. This marvelous boy came into the light in the year of our Lord 1546. From this event, everyone foretold civil war and predicted mutual slaughter among the citizens, for those citizens then fighting amongst themselves were said to be hiding iron, as it were, in their own bowels.

To tell the truth, however, this seems to pertain to excessive human audacity and superstition. We can indeed attest that monsters are God’s warnings, by which we are incited to amend our crimes so that, having finally wiped away our sins, we may return to a fruitful life; this meaning is more in harmony with the truth than others. Long ago, as Alexander ab Alexandro recounts, if unusual and monstrous births occurred, they were ordered to be cast into the sea or a river.

A little further on, he relates that among the Athenians, if monsters were born that required expiation, sacrifices were made to the *Agyieis*—that is, the gods of the vestibules—at the crossroads. For this reason, Agyieus Apollo was specially worshipped, so that if things were to turn out well and happily, the gods might grant prosperous outcomes and confirm and accept their promises; but if some evil were imminent, they might turn it away from the inhabited entrance. Caelius Calcagninus also records that if a person was born with three or four hands, or two heads, they were usually thrown into the sea or a desert wilderness for the sake of expiation by order of the Soothsayers.

He then adds, following Julius Obsequens, that a boy born to a handmaid with four feet, hands, eyes, and ears was burned by order of the Soothsayers, and his ashes were cast into the sea.

THE CAUSES

Authors typically assign a threefold cause (speaking of universal principles) for the generation of monsters. They call the first "supernatural," occurring when the Supreme God, in vengeance for some committed crime, changes a man—as we read of King Nebuchadnezzar in the Holy Scriptures.

The second cause lies "below nature," when an evil demon mocks human senses, as happens to certain people transformed into beasts through sorcery. The third cause is reduced to "natural causes," when some defect corrupts the natural principles intended for generation and conformation. For this reason, Saint Thomas, in his commentaries on Aristotle’s *Analytics*, attributed the procreation of monsters to the corruption of some principle.

But it should be noted that, if we are to speak the truth, monsters lack specific, determined causes, because they are not effects intended by nature but are produced only by accident. Therefore, the causes of these things should be brought into the field as imaginary rather than legitimate. Thus, it must be said that both intrinsic and extrinsic causes concur in the generation of a monster. Among the extrinsic causes are the nature of the region and the constitution of the air, since the generation of monsters occurs more frequently in Africa and Egypt than in other regions.

To intrinsic causes are reduced the formative power, the seminal matter, the receptacle of the fetus (the womb), and the membrane that wraps or divides the fetus.

For if the formative faculty is not at all fit for shaping an animal, it gives birth to a monster. Matter serves the creation of monsters through excess, through defect, and through mixture. Excess of matter is seen in monsters having more parts than the natural order dictates; a defect of that same matter appears in fetuses without hands or feet.

The mixing of matter can produce the same result: for Aristotle once wrote that monsters often occur in Africa because animals of different species gather at the rivers due to a shortage of water; there they mate, and from the mixture of different seeds, monsters emerge.

Monsters are also born because of the narrowness of the womb, when the abundance of matter for producing a twin fetus is fused together; from this arises a fetus integrated with more parts than is proper. A defect in the membranes of eggs that abound with two yolks is also a cause of generating a monster, because the matter is confused, and monstrous chicks usually leap forth from there.

Therefore, authors, having meditated diligently on these matters, in propo-