likewise, a woman of white complexion gave birth to black offspring resembling an Ethiopian, as shown in Icon I. It is claimed that this originated because the woman, during intercourse, was contemplating an image of an Ethiopian placed before her; for this reason, Hippocrates is said to have cleared this matron of the suspicion of adultery.

Furthermore, according to the authority of Aristotle, it sometimes happens in such cases that a resemblance reappears after several generations. An example of this is seen in Elis, where a woman who had relations with an Ethiopian did not give birth to a child of that color, but much later, an Ethiopian infant was born to her daughter. Similarly, the Byzantine poet Nicaeus, though born of two fair-skinned parents, reverted to the appearance of his Ethiopian grandfather. From this we must gather the reason why offspring are sometimes unlike their parents; for it often happens, for the reasons mentioned, that grandchildren resemble their grandparents or great-grandparents rather than their immediate progenitors. And although such births might not seem monstrous when considered simply on their own, they are nonetheless deserving of the name "monster" when compared to the parents whose color they do not share.

Occasionally it also happens that a fetus is born entirely imbued with a yellow color, which we believe stems from jaundice. Thus, Diogenes Laertius recorded that when Pythagoras's thigh was bared, it appeared golden. Aelian, however, cites Aristotle as the authority for this matter in these words: "Aristotle says that Pythagoras was called the Hyperborean Apollo by the Crotoniates," and Nicomachides adds "that he was sometimes seen on the same day and at the same hour by many people, both in Metapontum and appearing at the games in Croton, where Pythagoras even displayed a golden thigh." We can trace the cause of this effect to yellow bile sent by Nature into the thigh; since this type of effect—and the affliction called jaundice which depends on such bile—is also called *Aurago* (the "golden disease") by authors.

If we turn our attention to hairy skin, we find that people notable for an abundance of hair and infants covered in long fur have been born. First, we read in the Holy Bible that Esau was a hairy man. And Maiolus relates in his *Colloquies* that a girl covered in long hair was born to a smooth-skinned woman in the town of Pietrasanta in the territory of Pisa, as seen in Icon I.

I.

Authors attribute the cause of this effect to the image of Saint John the Baptist, who is traditionally depicted wearing a camel skin; the mother had been staring quite intently at his icon hanging in her bedroom.

There was also a hairy birth with claws as if armed, who, according to Lycosthenes, was born to a noble matron in the year 1282, during the reign of Pope Martin IV. By the Pope's order, all images of bears painted in that matron's house were removed—clear evidence of the imagination's reception of those bear images during conception. This hairy boy is shown in Icon II. Peucer, as reported by Lycosthenes, seems to confirm this phenomenon with another case, recording that in the year 1549, he himself saw a birth covered in bear-like hair.

II.

Furthermore, Realdo Colombo admits to having seen a Spaniard covered in long hair on every part of his body except his hands and face. Julius Caesar Scaliger also mentions a Spanish lad covered in white hair, who was said to have been brought from India or born in Spain to Indian parents. Likewise, according to Bolcius, King Henry of France provided for the education in Paris of a youth who was no less hairy than a dog. Recently, in the most serene court of Parma, hairy people brought from elsewhere were kept, whose likenesses are placed in the first chapter of this History.

To the causes of hairy birth already described, we can add hairy parents, since Nature always strives to create effects that are not at all unlike their causes; for this reason, we understand that hairy offspring of those hairy parents are still living in Parma. Furthermore, we can identify another natural cause: namely, the thickness and abundance of "sooty" vapors with which the mother's blood sometimes overflows. Indeed, this can produce births covered in hair, just as people have even been found with hairy hearts, even though that vital organ is usually entirely devoid of any kind of hair. Nor do the supports for hairy