634 Ulisse Aldrovandi

third, at Constance by Lake Acronius, twins of both sexes were born, perfect in all their limbs but joined at the navel.

Similarly, in the village of Tetano in the upper Val d’Arno, in the year 1316, a monster was born representing two twins joined at the navel, one of whom had two legs, while the other had only one, as shown in Figure I.

Likewise, in February 1494, in Berhendia within the territory of the Illustrious Prince Palatine Elector, in a village not far from Heidelberg, twins were born with their chests fused together; their other parts were correctly formed, and they shared a common navel, as is evident in Figure II.

Furthermore, in September 1495, as Lycosthenes, Cornelius Gemma, and Paré testify, a woman near Worms and Bensheim gave birth to monstrous twin girls joined at the forehead, facing one another. Sebastian Münster mentions in his *Cosmographia* that he saw them in Mainz in 1501, by which time they had reached the age of six. They were forced to walk, sleep, and rise together; indeed, when one moved forward, the other had to move backward, and their noses almost touched. Their eyes could only be turned to the sides for vision, because their foreheads were firmly fused just above the eyes.

They are said to have lived until their tenth year; when one died, the other followed shortly after. This was either because the survivor perished from the wound when the other’s corpse was separated, or because the brain was fatally affected by the putrefaction of the deceased twin's body.

Authors record that the cause of this monstrosity was as follows: two women were conversing, one of whom was carrying twins in her womb, when a third woman unexpectedly came upon them and knocked their heads together. Consequently, the pregnant woman was so terrified that she impressed the mark of this collision upon the fetuses, as shown in Figure III.

Moreover, in 1503, in the village of Gossau in the territory of Zurich among the Swiss, a respectable woman gave birth to two fetuses joined at the navel, with two heads, four arms, and as many legs. And in 1538, according to Lycosthenes, similar fetuses born joined at the navel were observed.

Likewise, in February 1541, in Freiburg in Meissen, boys were born with the entire front of their bodies fused, as Peucer recorded in his *Teratoscopia*. Indeed, in the following year in the Duchy of Württemberg, two infants were born joined at the chest.

Similarly, in Heidelberg on the river Neckar, on Pentecost in 1544, a double male fetus was born to Caspar Besler, a smith, and his wife Catherine. They were fused at the belly, with their other parts perfect. The child lived for a day and a half, and when the body was opened, the surgeons found only one heart.

Again, in 1546, in a town in Saxony on the Elbe, infants were born fused from the thighs up to the neck, so that they seemed to hold each other in a mutual embrace. We can support this case with another older example as well as a more recent one. The first is found in Schenck: in January 1106, in the famous Imperial City of Strasbourg, a monstrous fetus was born to common parents—namely, to a carpenter named Stephen. It was a twin of the female sex, joined at the heads, neck, chest, and belly.

One face appeared with two eyes, four ears, a nose, and a mouth, not unhandsomely formed—at least if the monster was viewed from the front, where the face was shaped from the two fused heads. However, when the fetus was turned on its face, where the other child's face should have been, the two heads appeared joined like a wineskin, and nothing was to be seen except two small ears located at the top of the neck.

These twin girls, joined at the chest and belly, seemed to embrace each other, with their arms and legs crossed over one another on both sides, and a navel hanging down beneath both. The monster lived for an hour and a half, and after its death, when the little body was opened, the surgeons