408 Ulisse Aldrovandi

...in 1499, as Cornelius Gemma noted in the Duchy of Württemberg, a two-headed monster of the female sex was born, but with a single chest and belly; it had two feet and four arms. A similar two-headed infant was born in 1514 in the village of Gossau, near Groningen. Indeed, Caelius records a monster born in March of that same year, stating: "In a village of my native soil called Sarzano, there was a two-headed monster of unusual size; when it was four months old, it displayed many wonders worthy of admiration. All its limbs were perfectly proportioned to its height, and both faces were almost indistinguishable in their likeness. The hair on the heads was somewhat long and blackish. Between the two heads, a third hand rose up, which did not exceed the ears in length and did not appear entirely complete. The rest of the body was well-formed and visible without any foulness of blemish."

Thus, the day after its birth, the monster was brought to Rovigo, and because it was so remarkable, it was decided to present it to the Spanish Duke, who was acting as Viceroy on the border. Since there was a fear of decay, the monster was eviscerated; it was then found to have a single heart with a double liver and a twin spleen. Caelius chose to include this monster in his books because it was regarded as a portent, as Italy was then ablaze with internal discords.

Furthermore, in 1536, in the territory of Zurich, an infant was born with a single body and two heads; in the same year at Louvain, as Cornelius Gemma reports, a similar two-headed fetus emerged from a human womb. In 1538, a two-headed boy was born who actually grew to the full stature of a man; indeed, Jacobus Rufus admits to having seen him when he was over thirty years old. He was double in the head and shoulders, but had faces turned away from each other like a two-faced Janus, and he bore a striking resemblance in his beards and eyes. His appetite for food was the same, and his voice was very similar. This seems not to differ greatly from that two-headed monster seen in Bavaria, according to Paré.

Likewise, according to Lycosthenes, Hesse witnessed a two-headed boy born in January 1540, with the heads bent back toward the spine, their faces turned toward each other with a threatening expression. Similarly, in January 1552, in Witzenhausen, Hesse, Germany, a two-headed male was born with a double neck and an otherwise well-constituted body. In the same year, as Rufus recounts, a two-headed fetus was born in England, not far from Oxford, with the rest of its body poorly formed, for it had four arms and three misshapen feet. However, in the following year, according to Schenck, in a village of Meissen called Zehista, not far from Pirna, a two-headed child, perfectly formed in its other limbs, was born to a noblewoman.

V. We must not omit what happened in Geneva in 1555. A monster, such as is depicted in the following illustration, was born there to a French woman living in the city, which was a sign of an abundance of seminal matter. It was not perfectly two-headed, but two heads were so joined by Nature, swollen at the sides, that two faces appeared. Thus it was two-faced, just as Antiquity used to depict Janus. The intestines hung from the back, and the liver protruded from the woman's womb; for the monster was male on its right side and female on its left. The legs, which are seen separately in the illustration, were torn away by the mother while giving birth. Gaspar Masserius, a painter who was present along with many others, diligently sketched everything with his brush.

We cannot attribute the generation of this monster to the power of the imagination. For just as the imagination, as explained above, cannot diminish the matter dedicated to generation, by the same logic, it cannot increase that same matter. However, since the imagination can impress an accidental form upon the parts at will, it might perhaps—together with the formative virtue of the parts and the aid of the spirits—produce a two-faced fetus.

In the same year, on the twenty-seventh of September, in the village of Freiwaldau, not far from the town of Adorf in Vogtland, a two-headed infant was born to the wife of a blacksmith,