History of Monsters. 647

Furthermore, these conjoined monstrous bodies were exhibited to both the nobility and the common people. Regarding them, however, the following verses by Sorbinus may be read:

"Whence comes this new kind of monster? What dire lust of Nature has perverted its path, creating an unspeakable birth: twins clinging together by their reproductive parts, yet otherwise complete offspring with separate bodies? They face in opposite directions, their countenances looking away from one another. They have alternating hands, legs, and feet, though their bellies are joined into a single structure with but one opening beneath. From the top of the belly protrudes a single navel. There are no clear marks of sex, except that when the body was dissected, one was said to bear the signs of a male; its masculine face suggested a new species of Androgyne. It is no far-fetched conjecture to suggest that this was that very androgyne celebrated in the verses of our poet more than twenty-five years ago, shown to us—like so many other signs of evil—during the ten years that France has now been in conflict, etc."

In addition, in February of the year 1572, as Ambroise Paré recounts, in the parish of Villebon, on the road from Paris to Chartres, in a small village called Les Petites Bordes, Cipriana Giranda—wife of the farmer Jacques Marchand—gave birth to boys joined at the buttocks. Consequently, they faced in opposite directions. They shared common genitals, as well as a navel and abdomen. Although this monster had two chests, four arms, and four legs, it survived only a short time.

In Venice, too, in May 1575, a remarkable monster was born to a Jewish woman. There were two infants joined at the buttocks and the perineum, with their legs intertwined. They lacked the usual private parts, the navel serving in their stead; each, with their faces turned away from the other, took food and drink. All of these features are presented to the eye in Illustration II.

Again in Venice, in the year 1617, we learned that a monster of this kind was born; a similar birth is also said to have occurred in Genoa in March 1607.

Finally, in the territory of Pistoia, in March 1610, infants were born to a couple who worked as charcoal burners. These children were likewise joined at the genitals and buttocks, with their faces similarly positioned in opposite directions so that their sex could not be distinguished, although they seemed to lean toward the female. They were perfectly formed in all their limbs down to the navel, with only a single exit for waste. Furthermore, another opening was observed there, the internal cavity of which revealed two separate passages.

One of these infants possessed only a single leg, although the bones of two legs could be clearly felt by the hands of an observing surgeon. Furthermore, this small leg ended in two stunted feet, for they were made up of only eight toes in total, as shown in the drawing of the monster in Illustration III.

Both infants nursed very well, especially the first one who had been born. While one of them was suckling at the breast, the other often seemed to cry.