History of Monsters. 539

Having set forth these matters regarding the swiftness of horses, it should be noted that if Nature, erring while hindered in the procreation of animal offspring, adds more feet to the four a horse already possesses, they are far from becoming faster. On the contrary, they would turn out to be quite slow in their gait; for, in our opinion, a fifth or sixth leg would act as an impediment, preventing them from achieving any great speed.

Histories record horses born with five feet. First, in the year of the world 3829—that is, 134 years before the birth of the Virgin Mother of God—a horse supported by five legs was born in Rome on the Esquiline. (The Esquiline is a hill and a district of Rome so called because the citadel and the guards of King Tullius, who added that hill to the city, were located there.) Furthermore, another horse of this condition was seen in Bern, Switzerland, in the year 1555; there, a fifth foot along with its leg was added to the hindquarters rather than the forelegs, as can be seen in Illustration I.

But we need not wander through ancient histories, since in our own age, a mare endowed with eight feet was seen in Rome in the year 1634.

Indeed, a certain pack-mare was carrying a load of lime into the City when she gave birth to a mare formed with eight feet. His Eminence Cardinal Francesco Barberini—a prince most highly adorned by the generosity of the Muses and the Graces, and a most diligent investigator of natural things—ordered that she be carefully nourished and kept for breeding, and that a stallion be brought to her at the appointed time. In storing up a rich supply of learning in his precious storehouse for the benefit of both the present and future ages, the Cardinal in no way falls short of his uncle, Pope Urban VIII, who is supreme in letters in many ways.

This mare eventually became pregnant and gave birth to an elegant foal likewise featuring eight feet, as shown in Illustration II. This image was kindly provided to us by the distinguished Honorius Beatus, a man of great excellence in the medical faculty, so that we might include it among the rare wonders of this History. However, the mare later died, and we have learned that the foal was crushed and killed by the collapse of a rustic shed due to the negligence of its keepers.

If we turn our thoughts and discourse to the cattle family, we find that it too is not without monsters of this kind. We have it from Conrad Lycosthenes that in the year 1551, a five-legged ox was seen in Basel; it was being led around by a certain showman for the sake of profit. Its fifth leg, along with the foot, hung from the right shoulder, as appears in Illustration I.

Aelian similarly records in his *History of Animals* that he saw an ox endowed with five feet, as well as a calf from whose shoulders a fifth foot hung, which was entirely useless for walking. Nor should this seem strange to anyone; for in years past, a traveling merchant frequented Bologna who, for profit, led around an eight-legged cow to be viewed, which he eventually sold to the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Furthermore, according to Lycosthenes, in the year 1552, a six-legged calf was born in a village in Thuringia. Nature had added one extra leg to the front and another to the rear while in the womb; moreover, this monster carried a mass of flesh near its right side.

Then, on the third of March in the year 1556, a monster was born resembling a calf with six feet and a double head. One head seemed to look toward the East and the other toward the West, and three feet were attached to one head and three to the other—if Lycosthenes has grasped the truth. For our part, we provide here an illustration of a six-footed calf, two of whose feet hung from its back, completely useless for walking, as depicted in Figure II along with some Cretan marjoram.

We have also seen another calf born with seven feet, which in a way resembled a two-bodied monster. Although it had only one head, there appeared to be a certain division of the back, and a tail hung from each part. It had four hind legs and two forelegs, for the seventh leg took its origin from the end of the neck, as the picture