[POETRYAND TERATOLOGY: LORENZO MASCHERONI'S "INVITO A LESBIA CIDONIA" IN ANATOMICAL PREPARATIONS]. / POESIA E TERATOLOGIA: L'INVITO A LESBIA CIDONIA DI LORENZO MASCHERONI NEI PREPARATI ANATOMICI.

In 1793 Lorenzo Mascheroni, appointed to the chair of Mathematics at the University of Pavia and well-known poet, wrote "L'invito di Dafni Orobiano a Lesbia Cidonia". In the poem he described the beauty of the University of Pavia and its wonders gathered in the scientific collections of the museums. From the beginning, one of the glass cases of the Museum for the History of the University of Pavia shows some of the preparations described in the Mascheroni's verses. In addition to some fossils, human teratological preparations are also exposed: they recall the verses of the poem dedicated to the description of "monstrous" preparations. However, after a detailed scientifc and historical research, the traditional association of the exposed anatomical preparations with the verses is questioned.

Bone deformities and skeletal malformations in the Roman Imperial Age.

This paper describes some cases of individuals affected by skeletal deformities resulting in "freak" appearance. The skeletal remains were found during large archaeological excavations in the Roman territory, carried out by the Special Superintendence to the Archeological Heritage of Rome in the last years, dated back to the Imperial Age. The first cases reported are referred to two growth disorders with opposite effects: a case of dwarfism and another of gigantism. The former concerns a young man from the Collatina necropolis with very short and malformed limbs, which allowed a diagnosis of acondroplasic dwarfism, a rare congenital disorder that limits height below 130 cm. The latter case comes from the necropolis of Torre Serpentana in Fidenae, and is instead referred to a young person of very high stature, about 204 cm, suffering from Gigantism, a rare condition which in this case seems to have been linked to a hormonal dysfunction due to a pituitary adenoma. A third case regards a joint disease affecting the vertebral column and causing severe deformities. The skeleton was found in the Collatina necropolis and belongs to an old woman, suffering from ankylosing spondylitis. Finally, the last and very peculiar case is related to an individual recovered in the necropolis of Castel Malnome. The skeletal remains belong to an adult man with a complete fusion of the temporo-mandibular joint, which compromised mastication and caused severe deformation of the maxillofacial complex. These cases are described in detail together with the possible implications that these deformities could have on in the social context.

The birth of a monstrous child throughout history: the example of anencephaly between the Egyptian New Empire and the 21st century.

Anencephaly is of special interest for the historical study of human behaviour after the birth of a monstrous child. Examples of anencephalic human births from Egyptian Antiquity to the present time allow us to create a history of teratology, revealing hiatuses in the medical and scientific interpretation of monstrosity that contrast to a relative continuity in the imaginary processes that accompany the birth of a monstrous child.

Medieval monsters, in theory and practice.

The past two decades have witnessed a plethora of studies on the medieval monster. These studies have contributed significantly to our understanding of religion, art, literature, and science in the Middle Ages. However, a tendency to treat the medieval monster in purely symbolic and psychological terms ignores the lived experiences of impaired medieval people and their culture's attitudes toward them. With the aid of recent insights provided by disability studies, this article aims to confront "real" medieval monsters--e.g., physically impaired human beings--in both their human and monstrous aspects.

Leonardo Da Vinci, the genius and the monsters. Casual encounters?

This article analyses Leonardo's interest in monsters and deformed reality, one of the lesser known aspects of his vast and multifaceted output. With the possible exception of his studies of physiognomy, relevant drawings, sketches and short stories represent a marginal aspect of his work, but they are nevertheless significant for historians of teratology. The purpose of this study is to provide a broad overview of the relationship between Leonardo and both the literature on mythological monsters and the reports on monstrous births that he either read about or witnessed personally. While aspects of his appreciation and attention to beauty and the pursuit of perfection and good proportions are the elements most emphasised in Leonardo's work, other no less interesting aspects related to deformity have been considered of marginal importance. My analysis will demonstrate that Leonardo approached the realm of monstrosity as if he considered abnormality a mirror of normality, deformity a mirror of harmony, and disease a mirror of health, as if to emphasise that, ultimately, it is the monster that gives the world the gift of normality. Two special cases of monstrosity are analysed: the famous monster of Ravenna, whose image was found among his papers, and a very rare case of parasitic conjoined twins (thoracopagus parasiticus) portrayed for the first time alive, probably in Florence, by Leonardo himself.

The woman who gave birth to a dog Monstrosity and bestiality in Quaestiones Medico-Legales by Paolo Zacchia.

The Italian Paolo Zacchia (1584-1659) is considered one of the fathers of forensic medicine. From a letter sent by the physician and botanist Pietro Castelli, the article seeks to reconstruct the opinions that Zacchia expressed about monsters in his monumental Quaestiones Medico-Legales. Although he did not seem too sure about the possibility that a hybrid could be born from the union of a man and a beast, he believed that God intervened, allowing the birth so that the abomination could be discovered. The opinion of Zacchia is related to the image that people had at the time of the relationship between humans and animals.

"Monstre". Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and the science of monstrosity.

This article aims at analyzing the entry "Monstre", written by Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1827 and included in the Dictionnaire classique d'histoire naturelle. Under Etienne Geoffroy the study of monsters brought new heuristic and theoretical approaches to the research fields of anatomy and embryology, and acquired the status of a scientific discipline having its own theoreticalfoundations and therefore its own standards for classification, seen as non-random means for revealing a groundbreaking knowledge.

Semantics of monstrosity in the ninenteenth century.

The emphasis of the normal, the human aspect and feature in monstrosities is a leitmotif that becomes prevalent in the scientific debate on teratological phenomena in the nineteenth century. The discourse highlights the organisation of the civilising process with regard to creating an antithesis between human and animality. In this respect, anthropology establishes anthropometry as a measuring and classifying instrument, hence supporting concepts of norm and abnormity in the scientific discussion. The classification approach finally translates teratological occurrences into the "human system" with the monstrosity being transformed into a subject of knowledge. Scientific discourse poses and installs the latter as living attraction for medical and anthropological examination, thus stressing boundary permeability between man and animal. Evolutionary theory finally initiates the quest for the missing link between man and ape, with congenital disorders, such as microcephaly, becoming particularly supportive of the idea of a manifesting existence of a primitive pre-human form.

Teratology in Mexico. 19th Century.

It was not until the last third of the 19th century, the period in which, according to historiography, the country definitely inserted itself into modernity, that anomalies and monstrosities had a presence in Mexico. Therefore, what I present here are four moments of teratology in Mexico, four dates in which I try to recount how teratology, which still occupied a marginal place within the main themes of national science, not only reached to cover the realm of medical discussions at the time, but also laid the foundations for new disciplines like biology and anthropology.

Monstrous births and medical networks: debates over forensic evidence, generation theory, and obstetrical authority in France, ca. 1780-1815.

In France between 1780 and 1815, doctors opened a broad correspondence with medical faculties and public officials about foetal anomalies ("monstrosities"). Institutional and legal reforms forced doctors to encounter monstrous births with greater frequency, and they responded by developing new ideas about heredity and embryology to explain malformations to public officials. Though doctors achieved consensus on pathogenesis, they struggled to apply these ideas in forensic cases, especially with doubtful sex. Medical networks simultaneously allowed doctors to explore obstetrical techniques, as licensing regulations forced practitioners into emotional encounters with child anomalies. Doctors thus developed a new ethics for treating monstrosities, viewing them as pathological specimens, forensic objects, and obstetrical tragedies.

[Conjoined twins. Historical review]. / Samvaxnir tvíburar á Islandi.

Conjoined twinning is a rare and complex malformation of the newborn. In this study an attention is drawn to reports published in Icelandic historical logs. There are four examples of definite conjoined pairing and one uncertain. An embryologic background of conjoined twinning is introduced and new view of its pathogenesis, are proposed.

Conjoint twinning in the Maltese Islands.

Conjoined twinning is a relatively rare event in any community, with a rate of 1.58 per 100,000 maternities reported in the EUROCAT database. The present study reviews the historical records for conjoined twins born in a closed Central Mediterranean archipelago population with particular reference to the last three decades. While the natural monozygotic twinning rates in the Maltese Islands corresponds to that reported from other communities, the incidence of conjoined twinning in the Maltese Islands has been shown by the present study to be significantly 2.5-times higher than that reported by the remaining EUROCAT contributors. The rate reported from the Maltese Islands by this review is 3.98 per 100,000 maternities.

"Pur sarripu pursa trutin": monster-fighting and medicine in early medieval Scandinavia.

This paper seeks evidence among our extensive Scandinavian mythological texts for an area which they seldom discuss explicitly: the conceptualisation and handling of illness and healing. Its core evidence is two runic texts (the Canterbury Rune-Charm and the Sigtuna Amulet) which conceptualise illness as a "purs" ("ogre, monster"). The article discusses the semantics of "purs," arguing that illness and supernatural beings could be conceptualised as identical in medieval Scandinavia. This provides a basis for arguing that myths in which gods and heroes fight monsters provided a paradigm for the struggle with illness.

Essaying the mechanical hypothesis: Descartes, La Forge, and Malebranche on the formation of birthmarks.

This essay examines the determination by Cartesians to explain the maternal imagination's alleged role in the formation of birthmarks and the changing notion of monstrosity. Cartesians saw the formation of birthmarks as a challenge through which to demonstrate the heuristic capacity of mechanism. Descartes claimed to be able to explain the transmission of a perception from the mother's imagination to the fetus' skin without having recourse to the little pictures postulated by his contemporaries. La Forge offered a detailed account stating that the failure to explain the maternal imagination's impressions would cast doubt on mechanism. Whereas both characterized the birthmark as a deformation or monstrosity in miniature, Malebranche attributed a role to the maternal imagination in fashioning family likenesses. However, he also charged the mother's imagination with the transmission of original sin.

[A monstrous birth in the Middle Ages: the "Salernitan brother"]. / Une naissance monstrueuse au Moyen Age: le "frère de Salerne".

Gilles de Corbeil (XIIth century) reports the strange medical case of the "Salernitan brother", a monster born together with a normal child. This disorder is said to be typical of Salernitan women. The phenomenon which is still commented on by physicians in the following centuries is rather difficult to explain for it seems to depend on both scholarly medicine and popular beliefs.

Conjoined twins: historical perspective and report of a case.

In this article we review the historically important cases of conjoined twins (Biddenden Maids, Siamese twins, Blazek sisters) and contemporary knowledge regarding incidence, etiopathogenesis, antenatal diagnosis, antenatal management, and outcome of conjoined twins. We also present a case of male cephalothoracoomphalopagus, which is extremely rare.