482 Ulysses Aldrovandi

...ter. Since he had omitted no duty of kindness toward us, he ordered Thomas Schweiker to be summoned from the nearby Swabian saltworks. Thomas was then thirty-one years old and born of honorable parents; although his mother had given birth to him without arms, he nevertheless performed all the duties of hands with the help of his feet.

When he had climbed to a higher place, level with the table on which food had been set, he gripped a knife with his feet and cut bread and other foods, and brought the cup to his mouth with his feet as if they were hands. Having finished dinner, he painted, in everyone's sight, such elegant Latin and German letters with his feet that we took examples of them with us as a wondrous thing. Then, with a small knife, he prepared pens most suitable for writing, which he later gave to us.

While he was occupied with these things, we diligently inspected the shape of his feet, whose toes were so long and suitable for grasping things that, to those watching from a distance, they seemed like hands. This spectacle was truly pleasant and gratifying to us. He had also been ordered shortly before to present himself to his Imperial Majesty, namely Maximilian II, when he was passing through the city of Hall for the Diet of Speyer, and to the Electors of the Palatinate and Saxony, Ludwig and August. Their Majesties and Excellencies viewed this wonderful compensation of Nature with admiration and not without generosity. Hence, later, Johannes Posthius, an excellent physician and poet, illustrated the actions of this man without hands performed before the Imperial Majesty with this most elegant epigram:

A wondrous sight! Schweiker skillfully does everything with his feet, to whom Mother Nature gave no arms. For he drinks with his feet, takes his food with his feet, turns the pages of books, and prepares his pens with them. Indeed, he knows how to paint letters so well with his foot that it surpasses the characters drawn by an artist's hand. The great Emperor Maximilian once marveled at these things and generously gave fine gifts to the writer; for diligent industry can achieve anything, and what Nature itself denies, talent perfects.

Furthermore, it is not burdensome to add another epigram proposed and written by Schenck regarding the same Thomas Schweiker, who lacks arms.

Thomas Schweiker, a manikin of wondrous fate, whom piety and talent make rich. He first drew these vital breaths of light without little arms near the slow shallows of the Swabian Schwarzach. Lest Nature should suffer a bitter reproach, however, she granted him strength in his sturdy feet. What others handle and perform with their right and left hands, he completes entirely by the service of his feet. For he drinks, writes, and eats with his feet, and even makes belts—you would marvel if you saw the man. The best pen for writers has a curved nib, which he prepares for you with wondrous skill as you stand by. Emperor Maximilian marveled at him and once gave him coins generously as he wrote. Counts and Barons, full of wonder, presented to us this model of what is to be admired. What is taken from one limb is added to another; by this example, the greatest truth is confirmed. What does constant practice not achieve for Nature? I have seen the man; may it be well for him, for he truly deserves it.

In our own time as well—specifically in years past, namely in 1628—a young man lacking arms arrived in Bologna. Before the public, he performed the tasks already described extremely well with his feet, and in addition to those, he even fired a handgun.