# History of Monsters. 403

THE MULTIPLICATION OF HEADS

in the human fetus.

Just as Nature sometimes fails in the forming of a head, she is likewise occasionally superfluous in shaping one. This occurs not only by multiplying the heads to two, three, or more in their proper place, but even by producing a human head, contrary to the usual custom, in the belly—as will be observed in its own section. Indeed, according to Julius Obsequens, a two-headed girl was born during the consulship of Gaius Laelius and Lucius Domitius.

Orosius records that, with the Macedonian War looming, a two-headed boy was born in the territory of Veii during the consulship of Gaius Petilius and Gaius Valerius. Similarly, a woman in Rome suffered a miscarriage and gave birth to a two-headed fetus, which was thrown into the Tiber by order of the soothsayers. Furthermore, Rabbi Moses testified that in a certain year, Sicilian women gave birth to deformed fetuses, especially two-headed ones.

I. An illustration of a two-headed girl is found in the work of Ambroise Paré. Aside from having two heads, she was elegant in the beauty of all her limbs. Both heads shared the same desires for drinking, eating, sleeping, and speaking. This monster used to beg for a living from door to door, but she was eventually expelled from Bavaria by order of the local rulers; they feared that pregnant women, by frequently seeing this monster, might impress a similar deformity upon their own fetuses.

Gerolamo Cardano mentions a similar monster born in Milan in January 1544. It was indeed two-headed, while all the rest comprised only a single body. When the corpse was dissected by surgeons, the esophagus and stomach were found to be doubled, though they joined at the bottom at a single pylorus, from which two sets of intestines then arose before finally merging into one rectum. The heart was bifid, resembling the Greek letter Y; the liver was seen to be thick and long, without lobes. The spine was duplicated, with a finger's width between the two. There were two kidneys, but only one uterus and one bladder. It is clear, therefore, that what happens here is like what occurs with fruits: Nature attempted to create two girls, but at the very origin of the principal members, everything except the heads was collided and crushed together. Thus, all the primary organs, except the brains, merged into one; those created later, such as the uterus, arms, and extremities, were completed from only a single beginning, as if in one fetus. The monster was born alive but died shortly after due to the negligence of the midwife, who twisted one of the necks.

II. A two-headed hermaphroditic monster, and III. another two-headed hermaphroditic monster, are not much different from the one described above. The most learned Aldrovandi saw to it that illustrations of these were engraved, and having found them in the public Museum, we have not hesitated to present them for the reader to examine. Indeed, if we run through the sequence of years, we can recount many more monsters of this kind. For instance, in the year 1193, as read in the Annals of the Dominicans of Colmar, a woman in Sélestat gave birth to a two-headed boy. Furthermore, in 1118, a two-headed monster was born in Namur, possessing both sexes but otherwise simple in its other limbs. Likewise, it is recorded in the Chronicles of Trithemius that in the year 1236, in the village of Gebrab, a two-headed male child emerged from a human womb and drew the breath of life for six months and as many days. Additionally, in 1487, a two-headed infant was born in Padua, in whom, aside from Nature's excess, nothing foul to the sight was observed.

IV. In that same year, another similarly two-headed infant with an obscene member is said to have been born in Venice, as can be seen in the accompanying figure. But in the year eighty-