History of Monsters. 631

Do you wonder why the Stygian dog has three mouths?

Or why Geryon has three bodies? Indeed,

read us as a single body, but two souls.

Francesco Petrarca also makes mention of this monster in his work *On Memorable Things*.

Nature’s errors did not end here, however. In the year of our Lord 1494, in a German town called Rottweil, situated near the Black Forest, an infant was reportedly born with two heads, four arms, and only two feet, as Lycosthenes asserts.

Similarly, in the year 1498, according to the same historian, a female monster very similar to the previous one was born in the territory of Württemberg, possessing two heads, four arms, a single belly, and two feet.

Finally, in the village of Reinach, not far from Basel, in the year 1543, as Lycosthenes writes, a woman gave birth to male twins with their bodies fused above the navel, standing on four arms and only two feet. This monster was elegantly described by Sebastian Münster in his *Cosmography*.

To these, we add an illustration of a monster with two bodies joined as far as the pubes, drawn in life-like colors from a specimen in the public museum. It was born in the territory of Osimo, a city in Picenum, and was purified by the water of the sacred font in a double baptism. One head of this creature suckled milk perfectly well, while the other did not at all. Its likeness is represented in Figure II.

HUMAN MONSTERS

#### with two bodies, fused in various ways along their length within the maternal womb.

It now serves our purpose to proceed to an examination of truly two-bodied monsters—those which, although they may be complete in all their external parts, are so joined in the womb that they cannot be separated from one another. It is true that occasionally some small parts are missing in these two-bodied creatures, or sometimes redundant parts are observed; however, this does not prevent them from being called "two-bodied," since they are composed of a greater number of parts.

Rufus and Cornelius Gemma have mentioned such monsters in various places, and Volaterranus reports that he saw twins in Rome with their faces turned toward each other, joined together, who did not survive for long. According to Schenck, twins were also seen in Louvain fused at the sternum and belly, distinguished only by having two heads, four arms, and as many feet. Consequently, when the cadaver was dissected, a heart common to both was discovered, while the other parts were doubled. This gave rise to a controversy among learned men as to whether the seat of reason has its home in the heart or in the brain. But we shall deliberately bypass this dispute, for we recall asserting elsewhere, for the ears of physicians, that the dignity of the human form and the seat of reason reside in the brain and not in the heart—even though the heart conceals the fountain of heat and the principal knot of the natural and animal faculties.

We believe it is better, therefore, following our custom in recounting these things, to turn to the chronological sequence of years. Thus, we shall reveal the connection of twins first by the front part, then by the back, and finally by the side. And so, in the year of the world 3871, ninety-two years before the birth of the Virgin Mother of God, according to Lycosthenes, female twins were born at Urelfinia, joined together and stillborn. Likewise, in the year of our Lord 1063