492 Ulisse Aldrovandi

thousand five hundred and fifty-five, in the village of Freiwaldau, not far from the town of Adorf in Vogtland, a boy with four arms and as many feet, but with a double head, was observed. He was born to the wife of a blacksmith; although Lycosthenes recorded that the sex of this fetus was unknown, as the navel alone occupied the place of the genitals.

We have also learned from trustworthy men that recently in the territory of Ferrara—specifically on the twenty-fourth of July, 1579, as the evening twilight was falling—a monster distinguished by four arms was born, each hand of which was equipped with six fingers. We currently present for the reader's inspection a hermaphroditic monster complete with four arms and feet, the image of which was found in the public Museum and is labeled as Image III.

Regarding the multiplication of arms, authors differ in their opinions. Conrad Lycosthenes, in his history, speaks of multiplied arms in two places, and he always seems to assign these extra arms to certain nations, as if he wishes to suggest to us that men endowed with so many arms should not be counted among monsters.

Primitius mentions these when he recounts that Portuguese sailors, midway on their journey to Calicut where the North Star cannot be seen, found on a certain island men equipped with two arms and as many hands on their right side, with donkey ears and human faces, who run in the manner of stags. Elsewhere, likewise from the reports of others, he recorded these words: "In the *Deeds of Alexander the Great, King of the Macedonians*, we read that there are men in India with six arms and as many hands, who throughout their entire lives never encounter any ill health." Their likeness is seen in Image IV. However, one might wonder if Lycosthenes, in writing these things, has wandered from the straight path of truth, which is open to doubt. Since if Nature, erring in the formation of fetuses, has sometimes generated seven-headed creatures (as shown above), why could she not occasionally produce children with six arms and hands? These might later, in the time of Alexander the Great, have been seen in some remote region and believed to be a different species of human. But on these matters, one should read the "Chapter on Differences" in the first part of this history, where Figure V was to be placed.

If any monstrous births are said to derive their cause from an excessive abundance of seed, then monsters with many arms must undoubtedly be reduced to that category. For it is the opinion of the philosophers who have written on monsters that if an animal that is by nature uniparous, such as a human, produces more seminal matter during intercourse than is necessary for the procreation of one animal, it is impossible for only one offspring to be generated from all that matter. Consequently, either twins or multiple fetuses result. From this it follows that such births are later called portents and monsters because they are procreated outside the usual law of nature. Therefore, we assert that the cause for births with superfluous parts—examples of which are found in the figures above—is the same as that for twins and multiparous generation.

Indeed, it is clearly established that the multiplication of parts arises from a more copious effusion of seed than the nature of the offspring requires. Thus, Saint Augustine relates that in his own time a boy was born in the East whose upper parts were doubled, while his lower parts were merely single; for he is said to have had four arms and four ears, and yet he lived for some time. Similarly, Caelius Rhodiginus reports that two monstrous births of this kind were once seen in Italy—namely, those with multiplied parts—one of which was male and the other female. The male died quickly, but the female, contrary to everyone's expectation, lived to her twenty-fifth year. Yet this runs counter to the typical condition of monsters, as they are almost always said to be shorter-lived; indeed, as they are born against Nature's will, they live in like manner. From these briefly explained points, anyone will be able to deduce the cause of monsters endowed with many arms, which consists in the exceeding abundance of matter.