and she kills the worms within the belly, driving them out through the slippery bowels along the known path of discarded food. Indeed, she gradually casts out snakes from the fold of the womb, creatures born from putrid menstrual cycles—foul monsters reflecting the shape of lizards, long (O horror!) and no less than a foot in length and just as black.

It is not difficult for such creatures to be generated within a woman’s womb, since it is well known that from a woman’s purgations cast upon the ground and left to rot, both snakes and toads are procreated. For this reason, Giambattista della Porta recorded in his *Natural Magic* that similar animals can also be born in the womb, because retained purgations reach a higher degree of putrefaction. This, therefore, is prone to happen to women who are overflowing with impure blood due to a poor diet.

Unless we wish to attribute the cause of this monstrous birth not to the first seed, but to a second emission. For we are persuaded that an entirely whole child results from the first seed deposited in the womb, while an error later arises from a second seed, which, having reached an extreme state of decay, creates some absurd animal. This is why Matthaeus de Gradi, in the second part of his commentary on Al-Mansur, wrote that something once exited and flew out of a woman’s matrix.

Finally, we must not exclude from these causes nefarious intercourse—namely between humans and beasts. Although the Philosopher [Aristotle] seems not to admit this in one place, he nevertheless left it written elsewhere that animals of different species can procreate if they mate and have roughly equal gestation periods. Furthermore, the noted philosopher Plutarch declared that in his own time, a beautiful infant was born from the mingling of a man and a mare. Additionally, the arrangement of the reproductive vessels must be considered, since the bovine womb is capable of holding a human fetus in terms of space. The reader may search for other causes of this kind in the section on universal causes.

# ON THE MONSTROUS

Stature of Living Creatures.

#### Chapter X.

When we speak here of the monstrous stature of living things, we do not mean the height of Giants or the smallness of Pygmies, who are born almost entirely from the nations of Giants or Pygmies, as we discussed those in the first chapter of this history. Instead, we are talking about the unusual stature of any animal, whether leaning toward smallness or toward greatness—offspring who are born from parents of ordinary and common stature, but who do not match that stature as they grow, or instead exceed it. Such offspring cause great wonder in those who see them.

We will intentionally omit infants born with large heads, as those should be placed in the section on deformities of the head. We know from Lycosthenes that in the territory of Picenum, in the year 1472, an infant was born with a face of unusual size; and the most distinguished Liceti confesses that he saw a four-year-old boy in Padua in 1611 with a very large head that had no proportion to the rest of his body.

Now, to return to our subject: in the times of Valentinian, two men were found who were monstrous in their stature. One of them, in Syria, stood taller than all other men, while the other lived in Egypt and was of an incredibly small size. Likewise, when the Emperor Charles V arrived to receive the imperial crown from the Supreme Pontiff Clement VII at Bologna, he had in his retinue a servant of monstrous greatness, as was related in the first chapter of this book. And Johannes Georgius Schenck relates that he knew a certain Antonius Francken, a native of Gelderland in his thirty-ninth year, who was of an almost monstrous height, for he exceeded a length of seven feet.

Similarly, in the year 1549, according to the report of Lycosthenes, a boy was born in the territory of Zurich, in the district of Kyburg and the parish of Weisslingen, in the month of May. His parents, Johannes and Barbara, were a married couple of mediocre and common stature. The local parish priest baptized him and named him Heinrich, and his subsequent growth was a miracle to everyone. For when he had completed six years of age, he equaled the height of a fifteen-year-old youth, and even surpassed him in thickness and corpulence, possessing a deep voice, enlarged genitals, and a hairy puberty. Nor did he cease to grow; at five years old, he carried huge loads and managed a plow like a grown man. All the citizens of Zurich knew him, and Gessner testifies to having seen him when he was five.

A similar birth recently occurred in the territory of Naples, where a child was born to gardeners of ordinary stature. He was baptized Andreas in March of the year 1631. Within the space of a year and a half, he exceeded a height of eight palms with proportionate corpulence, and it was said that the nourishment of two nurses was not enough for him.

What we have so far explained regarding male offspring, we believe must also be understood regarding females. We read that under Justin the Thracian, a certain woman was brought from Cilicia of admirable stature, for she stood an entire cubit above all other men. Saint Augustine also mentions a woman of giant bulk seen at Rome before the city was sought for destruction by the Goths.

On the other hand, some are also seen to be monstrous due to an admirable shortness of stature. Indeed, in the time of Valentinian, a very tiny man was seen in Egypt, and Suetonius Tranquillus testifies that Augustus Caesar once put on public display a youth named Lucius, born of a respectable family, who was less than two feet tall and weighed seventeen pounds. According to Pliny, Canopas was a favorite of Julia, the granddaughter of Augustus, and he was only two feet and a palm high. Also in years past, according to the *Natural History* of the Jesuit Eusebius, a mannikin with perfectly formed limbs was seen in Spain; at seven years old he was already bearded, at ten he had all his strength, and he even fathered a son.

To these must be added the dwarf of the Most Illustrious Lord Charles de Créquy, who was forty-one years old and thirty inches tall, whom we discussed in the first chapter of this volume. Dwarfs not unlike him—specifically a brother and sister, male and female—are kept at home by the Most Illustrious Ferdinand Cospi, a most grave Senator of the City of Bologna, Marquis of Petriolo, Knight of the Holy Order of Saint Stephen (distinguished by the Great Cross upon his breast), Bailiff of the City Arezzo, and most prudent chamberlain to the Most Serene Ferdinand, the living Grand Duke of Tuscany. These twins were born to poor parents named Biuati, people of normal stature who cultivate the land in the commune called Bagnara in the Bolognese territory. He takes care of their education because he has observed these midgets to be fit for performing any function.

The male dwarf, named Sebastian, now twenty-six years old, barely exceeds a height of three spans and a half. The other, his sister named Angelica, is now in her twenty-third year, yet her height reaches only three spans and two inches. Furthermore, both are to be admired for the elegant proportion of their parts, which is consistent with their short stature; for this reason, we present the images of both for the reader to behold.

As for the imperial crown—