History of Monsters. 607

These monsters, however, are distinguished from one another by the nature of their various connections. For some are seen joined at the front, others at the back, and others along their sides; finally, there are those joined at the buttocks, with their heads facing in somewhat opposite directions. Furthermore, the reader will be able to observe that the same differences found in human monsters of this nature also occur among beasts.

HUMAN MONSTERS

#### Joined with two bodies and only a single head.

Many monsters of this nature were seen in times past, as testified by authors of high standing. First among them, Albertus Magnus, in his commentaries on Aristotle, mentions a monster that had four legs, but this double body was controlled by a single upper part. Likewise, Pietro d'Abano, in his commentaries on Aristotle’s *Problems*, records a monster observed in Italy of the female sex, which was continuous down to the abdominal cavity but double from there on. Similarly, Valeriola, in his *Commonplaces*, describes a monster seen at Avignon that was double-bodied from the neck down.

Imperato also reported that a monster was born in Naples to a prostitute suffering from the French disease, which presented two bodies joined by a single head. The head was enormous; one side showed the features of a face, while the other displayed a single ear. When the corpse was dissected, two hearts were found with a single stomach.

Furthermore, if we wander through the annals of history, we will find many more monsters of this condition to admire. Lycosthenes, for instance, provides an image of a girl born in Bern, Italy, in the year 1472, who had a single head but double lower parts. In the year 1578, a boy was born in Germany with one head and double lower parts, along with many other monstrous deformities that do not seem to belong in this specific section.

Moreover, in the year 1531, near Esslingen, an infant with a single head and four ears was born, with other lower parts doubled; Paré also mentions this monster, though he does not describe the ears as being doubled in the same way. Again, in 1547, twin infants joined by a single head are said to have been born in Louvain.

To these is added an illustration of a monstrous fetus born in the year 1569 to a woman from Tours. She gave birth to twins embracing each other, distinguished by a single head. Ambroise Paré admits that he received the skeleton of this monster from René Ciret; this monster is shown in Figure I.

Then, in the year 1579, in Isola del Lago Scuro in the territory of Ferrara, a monster was observed born with a single head and a lump of flesh near the back of the skull. In its mouth were two tongues—the sharper one resting upon the broader one—and it was endowed with a single neck, while the rest of its body was double and of the female sex. This monster can be seen depicted in lifelike colors in the public museum, where a hermaphroditic, double-bodied, single-headed monster is also on display.

We wish to describe and represent another, even more monstrous creature born in October 1590 to a farming couple in a village of the Picenum region, in the Diocese of Ascoli. The constitution of this monster was as follows: it had a single large head with protruding eyes like those of a toad, nostrils flared upward, and a gaping mouth stretching all the way to the ears in the manner of frogs. Fleshy fibers like strands of hair hung from its chin, curly, and from the bottom upward not