MEDICINA NEI SECOLI ARTE E SCIENZA, 26/1 (2014) 117-144
Journal of History of Medicine
Articoli/Articles
THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO A DOG
MONSTROSITY AND BESTIALITY IN QUAESTIONES
MEDICO-LEGALES BY PAOLO ZACCHIA
FRANCESCO PAOLO DE CEGLIA
Department FLESS
University of Bari, I.
SUMMARY
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.
A Letter from Sicily
Last year, 26 December 1635, the feast day of Saint Stephen, here, in
the noble city of Messina, the wife of a goldsmith, who the previous
year had given birth to a monster in the shape of a donkey, gave
birth to one that looked like a dog. I also learned from the people
of Messina that two years ago a woman of a nobler family gave
Key words: Paolo Zacchia – Monsters – Bestiality – Science and Religion
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birth to a Cyclops. In fact, not without reason the ancients collocated
the Cyclopes in Sicily. Not only are these [monsters] generated here
with a certain frequency, but there are also many caudate fetuses,
as well on the isle of Britain, or in Liguria, where I have seen many
born with a tail, which is, however, cut off when they are infants1.
In 1636 the physician and botanist Pietro Castelli, who had recently
moved to Sicily, sent this letter to the famous Paolo Zacchia, whose
rise in the elite circles of healthcare in the papal Rome of the day
would continue for a long time yet2. An important boost to his so-
cial rise came from the monumental Quaestiones Medico-Legales,
which Zacchia was publishing at the time3. The Sicilian letter would
be included in the book’s appendix, among the consilia or consul-
tations, which aimed at illustrating the main arguments of the rest
of the treatise. The two men had known each other personally for
many years. In the 1620s, in Rome, there had been a heated argu-
ment about the legality of the use of vitriol-based medicines, during
which, in 1623, Castelli had published a series of epistles, the lon-
gest of which, dated 1623, was dedicated to his famous colleague,
“the highly eminent philosopher and physician, as well as an ho-
nest friend”4. Moreover, upon being transferred to Messina in 1634,
he had asked Zacchia to take his place as the personal physician of
Cardinal Lelio Biscia5.
A drawing, not reproduced in the printed work, was enclosed in the
letter, which nevertheless provided a long description of the monster:
It was shaped like a dog and its sacrum seemed very wide and full, but
without a tail. The skin, or better the cutis, [was] completely hairless,
ruddy and highly tenuous, only in this was it similar to a human. Instead,
its head, considering [its] shape and the position of the eyes, could be
more easily compared to that of a bird than to that of a dog, although the
ears were canine, the right one more oblong than the left one, sticking
straight up. In place of the nose it had a wide, pendulous membrane, which,
once dried, remained erect. It had a small, round mouth with the two lower
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incisors. Its front feet were reminiscent of those of a dog, but without nails;
instead, the rear feet were truly monstrous: they were made of four oblong
fistulas, of equal size and empty, but osseous, some of which had a sort of
round plug at the end. Its abdomen was swollen and livid. I immediately
eviscerated it, but, since the entrails were putrid and very fetid, I could not
study them carefully. I only observed that the left kidney was very large, but
I did not see the right one: I was not surprised since I was investigating
amidst decay and nauseating stench. Likewise, I was not able to recognize
its sex, but it seemed to me to be a female. The length of the cadaver from
its clavicle to the coccyx was a handbreadth, and from head to toe a hand-
breadth and a half. Then, with proper care, I dried the body, which I keep
in my museum, complete and displayable6.
To tell the truth, Castelli did not have many doubts about what had hap-
pened and most likely wrote to Rome, rather than for enlightenment,
to ensure that his name would appear, linked to some bizarre case, in
a prestigious work like Quaestiones Medico-Legales7. His reference
to the “body, which I keep in my museum, complete and displaya-
ble” was basically a form of self-promotion: “through the possession
of objects, one physically acquired knowledge, and through their di-
splay, one symbolically acquired the honor and reputation that all
men of learning cultivated”8.
Castelli emphasized the psychological characteristics of the woman,
while, not dedicating much attention to her physical state (“of good
aspect and form” were the only words used), he did not clarify whether
he had ever seen her (he stated that he had spoken with her husband,
but did not say whether he had had a chance to examine, or at least see,
the new mother, which, in such cases, was not the custom for the me-
dicine of the time)9. In this way, he provided information that Zacchia,
practically spoon-fed, could use to reach the only possible final con-
clusion: the monster was born because of the woman’s fervid imagi-
nation. The matter would, however, prove to be more complicated10.
After all, everyone knew about the “Jacobi experimentum” recount-
ed in the Book of Genesis, to which Castelli himself made reference:
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Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
Jacob, after having worked for his father-in-law, Laban, for many
years grazing his flocks and managing his properties, had decided to
leave his home and asked for a flock of his own as “severance pay”.
As he was not successful, he resorted to a trick. He thus proposed a
deal to the old man: he would continue to graze his flocks, leaving
his father-in-law the white sheep and the goats of a single color, but
keeping the dark sheep and all the speckled and dotted animals for
himself. Laban accepted. Then, the young man took fresh branches
and made incisions on them, so that they appeared striated and of
non-uniform color. He put them where the animals went to drink
and mate. After looking at those colored marks, they gave birth to
streaked, speckled, and spotted lambs and kids …11
Castelli recounted that the first time the woman had been pregnant,
while looking out the window she had seen a donkey mating in the
street and had been so struck by this, that she had given birth to a
being that looked like a donkey. Instead, the second time, while she
was having intimate relations with her husband, she had felt obser-
ved by the family dog. She had pointed this out to the man, who,
calmly, had asked her why she was so concerned. At the end of the
nine months, however, she had often heard the fetus barking from
inside her uterus, and she had confided in her husband that she feared
that she had a dog in her womb. In the end, she had given birth to
the monster, but had been unable to expel the placenta, which was
particularly hard and leathery, until 10 days after the delivery. The
physician elucidated, “the cadaver with its occiput broken was brou-
ght to me two days after the birth. The father said that while it was
emerging from the uterus the mother herself had pulled its head, and
that it had broken. But, for my part, I suspect that it was deliberately
crushed because it was a monster”12.
Zacchia had been not so sure that the mixing of human semen with
that of animals would not lead to procreation. As we will see, he had
already hinted at that possibility in a special section of Quaestiones
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Medico-Legales, but over time he was increasingly convinced. After
all, he warned, fueling this false belief only had dramatic consequen-
ces: women, in fact, thinking that they could not become pregnant,
continued to mate with animals with impunity, but then, after delive-
ry, blamed the monstrosity of those born to a defect in sperm or blo-
od or, as in the case in question, to an overly lively imagination …
His argument was based on exclusion. It was not possible that the
monster of Messina was the result of a defect of semen or blood,
because both the mother and the father – in the opinion of a cursory
Zacchia, whose only source was Castelli who, in his turn, was quite
reticent on the subject – seemed to be in good health. Moreover, had
there been a defect in the semen, a mole [moles] would have come
out – that “however, I believe is only spawned from a female seed”
– while what was born was an animal that was in some way com-
plete13. Finally, the fact that the monstrous birth was repeated led to
the exclusion of the influence of the imagination: it was not possible
that such a rare event could happen twice to the same person in such
a short period of time.
It was necessary to understand how the human body worked.
Imagination was an animal faculty: differently from what Thomas
Feyens believed, therefore it could not perform a task pertaining to
a natural faculty, such as the facultas formatrix, nor direct it very
much14. Otherwise, it would have been necessary to attribute the fa-
cultas formatrix with a sort of cognitio, which, instead, it clearly did
not possess. Nor would the problem have been resolved by sustai-
ning, as indeed Feyens did, that the cognitio was twofold: “true” co-
gnitio, possessed by the stricto sensu powers of knowledge, and “na-
tural” cognitio, corresponding to the unconscious way that animated
parts of the body, plants, etc. “know” how to function (in modern
terms you could call this their biological information)15. For Zacchia,
in fact, Feyens “cites this natural cognition completely spuriously,
since all things that function naturally do not act through any co-
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gnition, but by necessity of nature”16. Nevertheless, even permitting
(but not granting) the said cognitio naturalis, it would not explain
anything: it would, in fact, have acted in a manner favorable to its
nature, not in a way that would alter and destroy it, as in the case of
the procreation of monsters. There was an additional difficulty. The
facultas formatrix, as demonstrated by the continuing growth of bo-
dies, never rested and was very strong. How could it be overcome by
imagination, if not even will was able to influence it? Finally, if the
phantasmata with which it acted were immaterial, how could they
have an effect on material? As a result of all of these reflections, only
one conclusion could be reached: the effects of the imagination on
the fetus were more imaginary than real:
On the basis of what has been said, excluding imagination and defects of
the semen as causes of these monsters, what remains is the suspicion of
the commingling of semen of different species. Therefore, I still suspect this
woman, who gave birth to the monster you have described, of having nefa-
rious relations and, to bring the truth of the facts to light, it is necessary
to proceed with these clues so as to identify others. Unless it is said in her
defense that: 1) said procreation of monsters can be ascribed to the nature
of the region, since Sicily is fecund with these monsters, as you yourself
admit; 2) this birth belongs to the type of mole and that the barking that the
woman spoke of was imaginary; that it was her fear that made it seem as
if the fetus were barking. In this vein there is also the opinion, which I find
convincing, that moles are generated by the female seed alone, together
with the flowing of blood to the uterus. It could then have happened that the
woman, watching the donkey that mated and the dog, released her own seed
during the act of coitus and conceived. From this, she brought to light these
monsters. Although this interpretation is not lacking in great difficulties17.
Zacchia’s Monsters
In short, Zacchia, who generally did not like statements that were too
restrictive, seemed to “absolve” the woman only so as not to contra-
dict his colleague, but, if it were left to him, the evidence would have
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led to quite a different conclusion. His was certainly not an improvi-
sed opinion. He had, in fact, dedicated an important section to mon-
sters in Quaestiones Medico-Legales, in which he had defined them
as not quite human18, and for many people they should not even be
baptized19 or could even be killed with impunity (not being children
legally, they obviously could not be beneficiaries of a will either)20.
They were “non-vital” beings, because of their ephemeral nature21:
often aborted, they were able to live with their mothers only as long
as they remained in the uterus; in fact, they died immediately after
birth22. He defined them as follows:
The monster is an animated being, generated in such a way that it deviates
enormously in goodness and simplicity from the figure of the species to
which it belongs … I say “in goodness,” meaning for goodness the sym-
metry and natural proportion of the figure … “In simplicity,” to include
the monsters that count excessive members or which have additional parts
that are not proper for the individuals of the species to which they belong
… Since we cannot call monsters those in possession of every type of error
or deviance in goodness and simplicity of figure, like a deformed foot or
an extra or missing finger … those words “that deviates enormously”
were added”23.
Having set aside the teratological classifications offered by those who
had preceded him24, Zacchia devised his own, definable as “anatomi-
cal-combinatorial:” the monster was the result of an excess or defect
of parts. Therefore, it could be a monster: a) on the basis of its “form
or external figure;” or b) on the basis of the “substance of its members
or their quantity.” In case a) there were three ways in which this could
take place: a.1) “according to external constitution,” if the organs did
not have the appearance they should have had, as in the case of a
twisted nose, shrunken feet or crossed eyes; a.2) “according to their
site,” when the members and parts were not in their natural position,
like when an eye was located on the chest, the hands came directly
out of the hips, or a foot was connected to the tibia; a.3) “according
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to the substance of the member,” if the human body hosted a part that
did not belong to its species, like a dog’s head, the legs of an ox or a
horse, but also when a woman gave birth to a dog or a hare, or a child
was born to a horse25. In case b) the articulation was dual: b.1) for de-
fect, if a part was mutilated or the subject was extremely small, as in
the case of pygmies; b.2) for excess, when a part was overly abundant
or multiple, or the subject was very large, as in the case of giants26.
Monsters had traditionally been considered “signs,” that is, as be-
arers of a specific message: generally, the announcement of a si-
tuation of moral abjection or a warning of fearful future events27.
Some believed that Cicero has sustained that the name “monster”
derived from the fact that it “futura praemonstret,” i.e. it shows the
future in advance28. However, for Zacchia this was an error. In fact,
freeing himself from tradition, he did not believe in the “communi-
cative” power of these beings29. Hence, he sustained that the mon-
ster should rather be interrelated to the fact that it “ab unoquoque
unicuique commonstretur,” that is to say that it “is indicated by each
to each”. Proof of this was Father Niccolò Riccardi, master of the
Sacred Palace, whom everyone called the “Father Monster,” because
he was admired and judged by all to be a prodigy of wisdom30.
The most fascinating aspect of these pages of Quaestiones Medico-
Legales is, above all, the vis destruens towards knowledge that was
widely shared (not always accompanied by an equally energetic vis
adstruens). Given the purely natural origin of the monsters, Zacchia
dismissed the “metaphysical causes” (God and demons), mostly re-
ferring to the copious existing literature, in particular to Fortunio
Liceti and Martin Weinrich. However, stating that he did not have
patience with superstitions, he focused on refuting some particular
clichés. First of all, he rejected any influence of the stars. He then
continued on to demonstrate the incorrectness of the belief that mon-
sters could be born from relations with incubuses and succubuses, of
whose existence he was nevertheless firmly convinced31. According
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to a certain theological-philosophical-medical-juridical koiné –
whose proponents included Martin Delrio, Gerolamo Cardano, and
Caspar Bauhin, among others – demons, taking on the appearance of
succubuses, would lay with men to snatch their seed, then turn into
incubuses, and pass the seed to women, in this way inseminating
them32. If this were true, Zacchia noted, the procreation that was pos-
sibly derived would, nonetheless, have been due to merely natural
causes, since “a demon cannot reach beyond the forces created by
nature”33. Therefore, the demon would only have been an interme-
diary, and, as a spiritual and incorporeal substance, it could not, in
any way, have blemished the semen34.
That someone or something could actually be born seemed frankly
improbable to him, “unless the Holy Mother Church does not teach
otherwise”35. The spiritual substance of semen was considered to be
so delicate that it cooled and dispersed if it was not placed “in a
suitable container” in a timely manner, while the period of time for
conception with – or, better, by means of – a demon would have
been rather long: the succubus would have had to gather the semen,
then transform itself into an incubus or pass the semen to one, which
would have had to lie with a woman, waiting for her to produce her
own seed, which would have to merge with the semen taken from
the man. This is why witches confessed that the semen received from
demons was so cold that it did not give them any pleasure!36 In short,
it was best to not lend too much credence to women who claimed to
have conceived with demons. They had, in fact, been fooled: either
by the demons, who had made their wombs swell and, at the time of
delivery, put children taken from somewhere else under the women;
or by others (most likely the men who had impregnated them).
In any case, supposing that women could conceive in this way, why
would a monster be born from semen that, as had been demonstrated,
could only be human? If you really wanted to find the cause of mon-
strosity in demons, it would have been wise to admit they could act
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to alter the semen or a fetus that had already formed in the uterus,
“but perhaps this cannot happen so easily”37. The “preternatural” – cat-
egory, as Lorraine Daston observed, invented in the 13th century by
theologists such as Thomas Aquinas – was undergoing a gradual “nat-
uralization” between the 16th and 17th centuries, due to the efforts of
physicians, natural philosophers and theologians, who aimed to drasti-
cally reduce the possibility of both divine and, above all, diabolical in-
tervention in nature38. In this climate, Zacchia positioned himself – as
Elena Brambilla notes – as a “rational or skeptical magician”: some-
one who, far from denying the theological or simply magical tradition,
attempted to destroy it from within, giving it a rational basis39. Hence,
for example, the attacks on the visionary Sprenger40.
The Power of the Imagination
Pietro Castelli attributed, as has been seen, great importance to the
imagination. This was a very ancient belief. Augustine, for example,
remembered how Hippocrates, using just this type of explanation, had
been able to exonerate from the accusation of adultery a white wom-
an who had given birth to a child with dark skin: “He urged those men
to see if by chance in their bedroom there was a painting of a child
who resembled him; the painting was found and the women was freed
from suspicion”41.Nothing new, therefore. Nevertheless, between the
late sixteenth and early seventeenth century this type of belief was
much discussed by the medical class42. For many, the “species” which
resulted from the object that was seen, had passed through the eyes
to the “common sense” or sixth sense, which Aristotle located in the
heart and in the precordial region, and was then, in the case of spe-
cies, transported by the blood to the fetus43. The concept was of an
imagination “agent” or “transitive,” which had its roots in a more
Arab than Greek-Roman tradition: the phantasia was intended as an
operational force capable of influencing not only the soft body of the
unborn child, but also, at a distance, third objects44.
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Zacchia was clear: if imagination had really had all the strength that
was commonly attributed to it, monsters would have been much
more frequent. Women, in particular pregnant ones, always wanted
so many things; hence, they should have only given birth to children
covered with skin with more spots than a leopard! As in other medi-
cal treatises of the 16th and 17th centuries, in Quaestiones Medico-
Legales, due to reflections on maternal cravings, the pregnant wom-
an began to be presented, although within the limits of writings that
were still completely male, no longer as a “reproductive machine,”,
but as a psychologically complex being45.
The physician continued his indictment: why did the phenomenon not
occur in animals, which, not being endowed with reason, were, by force
of circumstances, more than women, slaves of their own imaginations?
Why did dogs – mirroring what happened to the woman in Messina –
who coupled and carried their pregnancies in full view of their owners,
not produce puppies that looked like people? Or that looked like the
other animals they lived with, for example in a courtyard or stall?
Of course, some might argue that the infrequency of the monsters
derived from the unlikely combination of circumstances necessary
for their creation. On the one hand, a violent passion of the soul was
necessary, on the other hand, that this took place at the appropriate
time, coincident with the act of fertilization or with the very first sta-
ge of gestation, when the fetus was very tender. Zacchia proceeded
analytically. There were two possibilities that those who believed
in the power of imagination were forced to admit: either that the in-
fluence could be exercised at any time or only in a certain period of
the pregnancy. In the first case,
if the transfer from one figure to another can occur at any [time] and if at
this very moment the mother who imagines a bull can transmit to her son
a head with a bovine form or, having imagined a frog, a frog-shaped head,
and then later she imagines a donkey, the bull will change into an ass or, if
she imagines a bird, the frog will change into a bird; which is ridiculous46.
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Secondly, it was necessary, however, to exclude the possibility that
the influence could occur at conception, because at such an early stage
the image would not have been able to attach itself to something that
was still shapeless. Consequently it was necessary to opt for a period
corresponding to three to seven days after the event47. Nevertheless,
concluded Zacchia with a very nonfactual argument, this could not
happen since “nature was stronger, which is cause in itself and im-
mutable”, than imagination, cause “per accidens and momentary”.
His conclusion was predictable: “Therefore, on the basis of all this,
we must conclude that imagination should be completely eliminated
from the list of causes”48.
In short, since there were many types of monsters, it was necessary to
open up to a kind of etiological pluralism and identify many different
causes: incorrect positions assumed by women especially during in-
tercourse, passions of the soul, defects of the semen or of the blood.
In particular, the degeneration of the semen was often invoked by
physicians of the day. Aristotle himself (or at least his tradition) had
sustained that a weak man and woman could produce a child that was
similar to an animal49. However, Zacchia was determined: he admit-
ted degeneration, but he warned against similarity to animals. This
was, in fact, evidence of something else: “The figure which degene-
rates into other figures denotes a very great defect in the semen and
blood that feed [the monster]. Instead, degeneration into other species
demonstrates the mixture of the semen of different species”50.
The Dilemmas of Hybridization
Thus, the problem of hybridization, or interspecific generation, aro-
se indirectly. Even if Zacchia, at least in the beginning, gave the
impression of wanting to address the issue from a general point of
view, he, as a physician, showed himself to be interested above all in
probing the possibility that a union between a human being and an
animal could be fruitful. For Galen, for example, this was not possi-
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ble because there was too much dissidentia or discordance between
the types of semen51. Not only: if, by some strange chance, a creature
was born to a man and a horse, what would he eat, food that is good
for humans or fodder? How would he walk? Which senses would he
have? How could he carry out his actions? Zacchia proceeded to di-
spel all doubts. Dissidentia, first of all, did not prohibit the breeding
of animals, one of which was the wild variant, and the other dome-
sticated: the boar and the pig; the wolf and the dog; the onager and
the ass. For the author of Quaestiones Medico-Legales – who in this
instance gave credit to many “dicitur” – even beasts that were more
distantly related were able to have offspring, as long as they had
some affinity, like the dog and the fox, the dog and the tiger, the tiger
and the panther, the leopard and the hyena, the dog and the monkey
… After all, even the horse and the donkey, despite being very dif-
ferent – the author exaggerated the differences – could, as is known,
have offspring. In confirmation of the possibility of the generation
of hybrids from dissimilar parents, Zacchia invoked the example of
the legendary hippotaurus, born of the union between a bull and a
mare, which he claimed to have seen personally52. In brief, the dissi-
dentia argument was indeed correct, but only applicable to animals
that were quite different from each other: this was the reason why the
stories about unions between eagles with wolves, or men with birds
or fish, should be considered in the same way as fairy tales53. As
for the second objection, it could be said that the newborn, as well
as all the hybrids, would have a particular physique which would
determine its nutrition, way of walking, etc. It was already difficult,
when crossing plants, to know what would come of it, let alone what
would result from a union between animals!54
Having disposed of Galen, it was time to address Aristotle. He be-
lieved that the female did not have her own seed, but only blood,
which nourished the male seed, which – it could be deduced – would
perhaps have found nourishment in the blood of any other species.
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Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
Therefore, were all types of cross-breeding possible? In Aristotle’s
opinion, three conditions had to be met: 1) that the two species were
not too distant in nature; 2) that their body size was not too diffe-
rent; 3) that they had the same gestation period55. Zacchia had little
to say about the first of these three conditions: man was considered
to be the most perfect being in creation and, certainly, there were
no creatures similar to him (although the argument against the dis-
sidentia invoked by Galen was still valid). Instead, he had stronger
opinions on the other two points. As for the size of the bodies, he
pointed out, it was common for large men to impregnate very small
women, as well as for very large women to be impregnated by very
small men. Moreover, a small female dog could be impregnated by
a large male, although the contrary did not hold true. However, this
happened “per accidens;” therefore, it was not possible to genera-
lize. Lastly, he responded to the third objection: when would the
hybrid of species with different gestational periods be born? Zacchia
believed that these periods were not set a priori by nature, but that
they corresponded to the period necessary for the fetus to become
perfect and, once born, be able to feed itself and survive. In fact,
even within the same species great variability was found: warmer
individuals were born before colder ones, males before females, the
strong before the weak, if it was hot outside before if it was cold, etc.
Therefore, nothing forbade that a hybrid could be born simply when
nature – which Zacchia imagined as a sort of self-regulating entity,
able to intervene constantly on itself each time it created an imbalan-
ce – considered it capable of surviving56.
Then there were other causes of impediment that Zacchia could not
challenge. First of all, the difference in genitals, size, shape, etc. The
author of Quaestiones Medico-Legales confirmed it: he had even
conducted experiments that showed that dogs whose genitals did not
adhere to each other could not generate! Then, it was necessary that
the emission times of the seed were the same in the male and in the
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female. However, everyone knew that warmer animals emitted their
seed first, and colder ones later57.
Man and the Beast or Man as a Beast
In comparison with the fathers of Italian forensic medicine who
had preceded him – for example, Giovanni Battista Codronchi58,
Fortunato Fedele59 and Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia60 – Zacchia ad-
dressed issues related to human sexuality (impotence, rape, her-
maphrodites, eunuchs, incubuses, succubuses, etc.) more carefully
and, therefore, also the monsters which resulted from forbidden re-
lations61. In truth, he did not seem to make clear distinctions between
“wonderful or exotic species,” which many thought lived permanen-
tly on the edge of the world, and actual monsters, born in the heart of
Christianity and a usually ephemeral life62.
Many of these stories, to tell the truth, did not seem credible even
to the author of Quaestiones Medico-Legales. Particularly unli-
kely were, for example, those which told of beings which had the
characteristics of their parents rigidly separate and almost juxtapo-
sed, like the monster with the body of a lamb and the head of a pig
born in Frosinone, not so far from Rome, and mentioned by Julius
Obsequens63. In order for there to be conception, it was essential
for the seeds to completely interpenetrate each other, mixing, so to
speak (anachronistically), their “gene pools”. For example, in the
case of centaurs it would be necessary to admit that the seeds, after
having joined together as one, could then separate again to form the
two parts, which frankly seemed absurd.
Excluding these cases, what really prevented the hybridization
between man and beast? Zacchia listed: man’s abomination for such
practices, the waywardness of animals; human and divine law; the
differences in genitals. All in all, perhaps except for the latter, these
were contingent limitations, rather than real, natural impeding cau-
ses. In every living creature, he added, heavenly and divine heat was
131
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
admitted. What vivified human seed, however, differed from that of
a beast only because it was more perfect: it could therefore heat and
vivify animal seed, creating a mixture from the intermediary cha-
racteristics. These were, in fact, only materials: nor you could say,
as many did, that the soul was already present in human semen (no-
netheless it was believed to be true that the soul was in the animal
semen and this was why it had difficulty in accepting a new form)64.
What then must be concluded? It must be certain that the seeds of any
animal, except man, contain the soul. Such seeds are combined with seeds
equal to them: in other terms, the seed of the male, upon reaching the
correct place in the female, leads to the creation of fish, birds and other
animals, as the soul itself that this contains has to give the form to the
material of the seed and the maternal blood. Instead, in human beings, the
seed, once separated from its parents, does not contain the soul, but only
the spirit. This has the seeds to receive the rational soul, which is infused
by God at the very moment in which the two seeds unite. Now, since the
seed of each of the parents is only the partial cause of generation, by itself
[ex se] it cannot generate anything, but must unite with a companion seed
to generate a human being. If therefore, in the place of the human seed, we
find the seed of an animal as the second parent, it cannot unite since the
seed of the animal is animated and contains the form of its species, that is,
of the animal that the seed came from; for this it is incapable of receiving a
form other than its own. Nevertheless, the human seed has a disposition to
receive the rational soul and not another and cannot in any way admit ano-
ther form. Therefore, it does not seem possible that the union of human seed
and that of an animal could generate anything. But I would not dare deny
that the birth of a monster (which, once born, is often thrown away) that
has limbs that are somehow halfway between those of a human and those of
a beat, constitutes a clear indication for putting the uncertain perpetrator
of the heinous act to meticulous torture. Probably God Optimus Maximus,
to atone for this ineffable crime will allow for something to be born from
that infamous commingling, so that he who is guilty of such deeds receives
due punishment …65
132
Monstrosity and Bestiality
Of course, medical examination at the time only had the status of te-
stimony and did not bind the judge’s decision. The matter, however,
was very delicate, because Zacchia invited the inquisitors, in clear
terms, to proceed to torture to extract a confession66.
In brief, while considering it very unlikely that the generation of a
hybrid of man and beast could occur in natural terms, he recovered
it metaphysically, anchoring it to the will of God to make the guilty
man – actually, the guilty woman – expiate her ignominious sin.
So, while in the remaining part of his teratological treatment he
maintained overall a “naturalistic” attitude, which also enabled him
to take courageous positions, as in the case of children born from
intercourse with succubuses and incubuses (after all, the perceptions
of demons were not so different from those of beasts), on monsters
with feral characteristics he maintained the traditional status of si-
gnum, a specific message which, wedged into natural law, was com-
municated by God to men. Perhaps a (minor) miraculum. Or, at least,
a sort of divine prodigium. The monsters born from the union of
man and beast were, therefore, the result of the transgression of a
rule. They showed how divine, natural and human laws were clo-
sely intertwined. Confirming that, Alan Bates notes, “behaviour such
as bestiality and sodomy was at the same time a sin, a crime, and
against nature”67. Over the years Zacchia would become more and
more convinced and finally he would declare: “I was previously of
that opinion, and now, I persevere much more in the [opinion] that
nothing can prevent it that from the mixture of human seed with be-
astly seed some generation can follow”68.
So, a return to the Middle Ages? Not exactly, far from it. An anecdote
recounts that one day Albert the Great had saved a cowherd who had
been accused of bestiality when one of his cows gave birth to a calf
with human characteristics. In this case, the saint-philosopher had
blamed the influence of the stars. In fact, Johannes M.M.H. Thijssen
explains that in the Middle Ages hybrids between man and animal
133
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
were not contemplated, which is why this type of monster was not
used as evidence of acts of bestiality69. It was only starting in the 16th-
17th centuries that authors of authoritative tracts (besides Zacchia,
Paré, Liceti, etc.) began to give credence to stories that admitted the
possibility of such a hybridization. After the Middle Ages, perhaps
humans rediscovered an embarrassing kinship with beasts, which, so
to speak, shortened the distance between the two steps of the “chain
of being” once separated by an unbridgeable metaphysical chasm70.
It was a sort of attack on the status of humanity, against which it was
necessary to take measures. Hence, increased attention was paid to
the rules that forbade men to join together with animals71. And court
cases multiplied72. Even at the expense of the animals themselves73.
The cities reacted to a crime that was committed in the provinces,
seen to be still feral and pagan74. While in the Middle Ages bestiality
was treated in the penitential manuals in the same way as mastur-
bation (after, a great deal of confusion with pederasty was recorded
until very recently)75, in the following centuries it became a capital
crime76. Not only was sex with animals punished, but also sex per-
formed in the manner of animals: coitus more ferarum, but also that
consumed with excessive and uncontrolled desire77. Man was not a
beast and it was necessary to remember it. As Paré stated,
It is certain that most often these monstrous and marvellous creatures pro-
ceed from the judgement of God, who permits fathers and mothers to pro-
duce such abominations from the disorder that they make in copulation,
like brutish beasts, in which their appetite guides them, without respecting
time, or other laws ordained by God and Nature78.
Naturally, the severity of the judgments was exaggerated when the
person in discussion was unknown and far away, and could have
easily indulged in all kinds of vices. Zacchia did not seem very con-
cerned about, if nothing else, casting a shadow of suspicion on the
woman in distant Messina. Nonetheless, in Quaestiones Medico-
134
Monstrosity and Bestiality
Legales he opened up the range of etiological possibilities in telling
of another monster with animal characteristics: the cause was attri-
buted to “vicious and corrupt matter” (the same, if he had wanted,
could have been said for the “fetid” Sicilian child), perhaps because,
in this case, the unfortunate mother was not an unknown woman
from Messina, but a noble Roman woman79.
But which monsters were human, or possessed a rational soul?
Zacchia adopted criteria which could be called “aesthetic”: those
which had a human figure were to be baptized – and so, could not
be killed with impunity – unless they were completely without their
senses. To define what is human he resorted to a category of mental
and physical perfection, since “it seems that for the perfection of
man [also] a sufficient perfection of the body is required, because the
soul alone does not make the man”80. The external figure, above all
in controversial cases, provided a clue to the presence of a rational
soul: this was the starting point for passing judgment. Appearance
gave the measure of the predominance of one of the two seeds – hu-
man vs. animal – over the other. A beast that mated with a human
being could, in fact, create humans or animals: Fortunato Fedele,
for example, argued that a horse or a cow, fertilized by a man, could
generate a real man81. After all, Attila himself was born, according to
Torquato Tasso, from the union of a woman and a dog …82
Doubts remained about those individuals who seemed somehow pla-
ced halfway between the one and the other species, like centaurs,
onocentaurs and satyrs (which Zacchia had just stated to have little
faith in their existence). For some, a human head, the seat of the
rational soul, ensured the subject’s humanity. It was, however, a sim-
plistic position: could you not see every day – asked Zacchia who
made reference to sayings which were probably best understood in
their metaphorical meaning, rather than literally – that lying beneath
the appearance of every man was an animal? In this state of uncer-
tainty it was necessary to proceed with a sub condicione baptism.
135
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
Quaestiones Medico-Legales mixed medical, legal, historical and
demonological sources with numerous poetic citations or, as in this
case, with statements of popular wisdom. The result was a text that,
while inspired by precise scientific convictions, included, in its basic
dimension as a compilation, evidence of dissimilar value and contra-
dictory judgments in which it was not difficult to get lost even in the
face of issues of importance83.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES
1. ZACCHIA P., Quaestiones medico-legales. Rome, S. Occhi, 1771, hence-
forth Quaestiones. Vol. III, Cons. XXII, p. 27. On the belief that Great Britain
was inhabited by men with tails, see DE CEGLIA F.P., Quegli strani cugini
d’oltremare: Racconti di uomini con la coda. In: COCO E. (ed.), L’arcipelago
inquieto: Una raccolta di saggi interdisciplinari sull’evoluzionismo visto dal
mare. Milano, B. Mondadori, 2009, pp. 31-42. In January 2012, when I started
working on Zacchia, no translation was available. Now an English translation
(by Amanda Lepp) of this consultation can be found online, in the framework
of a project directed by Jacalyn Duffin, at the following address: http://meds.
queensu.ca/medicine/histm/zacchia%20Cons%2022%20trans%20lepp.pdf
2. Zacchia became a chief physician for the first time in 1638, then likely
archiater to Pope Innocent X. On his biography, about which there is much
more uncertainty than is commonly believed, see DE RENZI S., Per una bio-
grafia di Paolo Zacchia: Nuovi documenti e ipotesi di ricerca. In: PASTORE
A., ROSSI G. (eds.), Paolo Zacchia: Alle origini della medicina legale.
1584-1659, Milano, F. Angeli, 2008, pp. 50-73. For a historical framework,
FISCHER-HOMBERGER E., Medizin von Gericht: Zur Sozialgeschichte
der Gerichtsmedizin. Bern-Stuttgart-Wien: Luchterhand Literaturverlag,
1988, passim; GENTILCORE D., Healers and Healing in Early Modern
Italy. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998, pp. 23-24, 186-187,
194; POMATA G., Contracting a Cure: Patients, Healers, and the Law in
Early Modern Bologna. Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1998, ad indicem; DITCHFIELD S., Liturgy, Sanctity, and History in
Tridentine Italy: Pietro Maria Campi and the Preservation of the Particular.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 235-36; GENTILCORE
136
Monstrosity and Bestiality
D., Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy. Oxford and New York,
Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 99; BRAMBILLA E., Corpi invasi e
viaggi dell’anima: Santità, possessione, esorcismo dalla teologia barocca
alla medicina illuminista. Rome, Viella, 2010, ad indicem, but primarily pp.
27-121.For a biography of Pietro Castelli, see DE FERRARI A., Castelli,
Pietro. In: Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. Rome, Istituto dell’Enciclo-
pedia Italiana, 1978 (21).
3. Quaestiones was “serialized”, in Rome, starting in 1621. Many other edi-
tions followed the first, and were printed in numerous other European cities.
The following editions contain additions and appendices, including the Con-
sila, the Responsa and the Decisiones of the Roman Rota (the latter collected
by Zacchia’s nephew Lanfranco Zacchia). On the timing of the issue and
re-issue of the texts see DUFFIN J., Questioning Medicine in Seventeenth-
Century Rome: The Consultations of Paolo Zacchia. Can. Bull. Med. Hist.
2011; 28 (1): 149-170.
4. CASTELLI P., Epistolae medicinales. Rome, G. Mascardi, 1626, pp. 34-119.
5. The information is confirmed in the same letter. On these relationships, see
CERBU T., Naudé as Editor of Cardano. In: BALDI M.L., CANZIANI G.
(eds.), Girolamo Cardano: Le opere, le fonti, la vita. Milano, F. Angeli, 1999,
pp. 363-378. Silvia De Renzi hypothesizes that Zacchia may have come into
contact with Marco Aurelio Severino through Castelli. DE RENZI S., see ref.
2. On the relationship between Castelli and Severino, see ref. TRABUCCO
O., La corrispondenza tra Pietro Castelli e Marco Aurelio Severino (con
un’appendice di lettere inedite). In: DOLLO C. (ed.), Filosofia e scienze
nella Sicilia dei secoli XVI e XVII. Catania, Centro di Studi per la Storia della
Filosofia in Sicilia, 1996, pp. 109-136.
6. Quaestiones, Vol. III, Cons. XXII, p. 27.
7. That which is reported is part of a packet of six Consilia (XVII-XXII) which
Castelli asked Zacchia for and which were published in Quaestiones medico-
legales (Vol. III, pp. 21-29). In the other cases it is difficult to know whether
Zacchia confirmed the diagnosis of the colleague, because only the argu-
menta are reported, i.e. brief descriptions of the case, and not Castelli’s full-
length letters.
8. FINDLEN P., Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting and Scientific Culture
in Early Modern Italy. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994, p. 3.
9. On this highly controversial issue, see PARK K., Secrets of Women: Gender,
Generation and the Origins of Human Dissection. New York, Zone Books,
2006, p. 116; DE RENZI S., The Risk of Childbirth: Physicians, Finance and
137
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
Women’s Death in the Law Courts of Seventeenth-Century Rome. Bull. Hist.
Med. 2010; 84 (4): 549-77.
10. It should be noted that the seventh book of Quaestiones medico-legales, in
which Zacchia had criticized those who supported the thesis of the effect of
the imagination, was released in 1635. Castelli, who claimed to have written
the letter to “enrich the volume,” was, therefore, likely aware of how diffe-
rent his colleague’s point of view was.
11. Genesis, 30, 31-42. For the history of the effects of this passage, see ANGE-
LINI M., Le meraviglie della generazione: Voglie materne, nascite straor-
dinarie e imposture nella storia della cultura e del pensiero medico (secoli
XV-XIX). Milan-Udine, Mimesis, 2012, pp. 19-36.
12. Quaestiones, Vol. III, Cons. XXII, p. 27. Levin Lemnius had advised against
keeping dogs and Barbary apes in the house because women, as a result of
their fervid imaginations, could generate children with characteristics remi-
niscent of these animals. LEMNIUS L., De gli occulti miracoli. Venice, L.
Avanzi, 1560, Part I, Chap. IV, pp. 8r-14r. Castelli’s words would seem to
imply more than they say explicitly. Perhaps they tell of a caring husband
who agrees with his wife, doubly unfortunate, on a credible version of the
facts and, leaving her at home, went alone to the physician to explain the
event. The story of first the “immodest” donkey, then the “nosy” dog (but also
the broken skull, perhaps evidence of infanticide, which in these cases, howe-
ver, was more easily carried out by suffocation) appear to have a timing a bit
too perfect to not cast a shadow of suspicion. This is, of course, only conjec-
ture, but on the complex question of the sources on infanticide in the modern
age, see DA MOLIN G., STELLA P., Famiglia e infanticidio nell’Europa
preindustriale. Quaderni (Ist. Scien. storico-politiche, Fac. Magistero, Un.
Bari) 1983-84; 3: 69-97.
13. Quaestiones, Vol. III, Cons. XXII, p. 28. “The mole is unformed flesh gene-
rated in the uterus by the female seed and by weak [deficient] male blood,
which could have guaranteed the form, not unlike that which is usually gene-
rated in a true conception.” Quaestiones, Vol. I, Book. I, Chap. III, Quaest. V,
p. 49. In truth, Zacchia dedicated a good part of the De praegnantia, super-
fetatione et mole (Vol. I, Book. I, Chap. III) section to the subject and at least
one consilium (XXXIX), using sometimes conflicting arguments, which left
no doubt about the possibility that the mole could actually be born without
the assistance of the male seed. On the mole see CONFORTI M., “Affirmare
quid intus sit divinare est”: Mole, mostri e vermi in un caso di falsa gravi-
danza di fine Seicento. Quaderni storici 2009; (1): 125-152.
138
Monstrosity and Bestiality
14. FEYENS T., De viribus imaginationis. London, R. Daniel, 1657, Quaest. 14,
Concl. 45 and Quaest. 15, Concl. 46-47, pp. 240-260. This text, published in
its first edition in 1635, was used widely for over a century.
15. The articulation is similar to that between ratio and ratiocinatio which would
be introduced by Georg Ernst Stahl less than a century later. Albeit with a
number of variations, it would be admitted by many in the world of the medi-
cine and natural philosophy (of Aristotelian ancestry) of the 17th century.
DE CEGLIA F.P., I fari di Halle: Georg Ernst Stahl, Friedrich Hoffmann
e la medicina europea del primo settecento. Bologna, il Mulino, 2007, pp.
187-207.
16. Quaestiones, Vol. III, Cons. XXII, p. 28.
17. Quaestiones, Vol. III, Cons. XXII, p. 29.
18. Although Zacchia assessed the writings of his predecessors critically, he
often did not take clear positions. Like Weinrich, he also felt that “among
the monsters, some species change, others do not” and in particular the first
deserved the name monsters. Cfr. WEINRICH M., De ortu monstruorum.
Breslau, Osthus, 1595, Chap. I, pp. 1-12. In addition, in some circumstances
it is not clear if the references he made to unlikely cases or wonderful species,
such as centaurs, satyrs and sphinxes, “if ever such monsters existed,” deri-
ved from a desire to offer a work that was as wide-ranging as possible (that
would collect and take a census of all the knowledge of the time) or from the
faith that he placed in his sources (including some that were poetic).
19. MENOCHIO G., De arbitrariis iudicum quaestionibus et causis. Köln, Ph.
Albert, 1630, Book 2, Cent. 5, Cas. 491, n. 26, p. 856.
20. Ibid., see ref. n. 27, p. 856; WEINRICH M., see ref. 18, Chap. 41, pp. 51-56;
CARRANZA A., Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi desi-
gnatione. Madrid, F. Martinez, 1628, Cap. 17, n. 22, pp. 585-586.
21. ARIST., De gen. anim., IV, 4.
22. WEINRICH M., see ref. 18, Chap. 35, pp. 32-35.
23. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. I, pp. 59-60.
24. On the teratological classifications of the period, see BATES A.W., Emblema-
tic Monsters: Unnatural Conceptions and Deformed Births in Early Modern
Europe. Amsterdam-New York, Rodopi, 2005, pp. 73-84.
25. For a later, well known case, see the story of Mary Toft, who, in 1726, clai-
med to have given birth to rabbits. On the subject, TODD D., Imagining
Monsters: Miscreations of the Self in Eighteenth-Century England. Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1995.
139
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
26. Zacchia dedicated a complex discussion to pygmies and giants, who he con-
sidered to be exotic species, rather than monsters in the strict sense. Quaestio-
nes, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. I, pp. 61-62.
27. DASTON L., PARK K., Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750. New
York, Zone Books, 1998, pp. 181-189.
28. CICERO, De divinatione, I, 42; the criticism of a misinterpretation of Cicero
is directed at LICETI F., De monstris ex recensione Gerardi Blasii. Padua, P.
Frambotti, 1668, Book 1, Chap. 3, p. 7.
29. On the new teratology of the 16th century, relatively freed from theology, still of
value is CEARD J., La nature et les prodiges. Geneva, Droz, 1977, pp. 437-459.
30. On Padre Riccardi, Zacchia’s praemonstrator of theology, Master of the
Sacred Palace, who had an ambivalent relationship with the works of Galilelo
Galilei, see ESZER A., Niccolo Riccardi, O.P. - Padre Mostro. Angelicum
1983; 60: 428-57.
31. Quaestiones, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. II, p. 63. Widely divergent opi-
nions on Zacchia’s demonology are expressed in SCHINO A.L., Incontri
italiani di Gabriel Naudé. Rivista italiana di storia della filosofia 1989; 44:
3-35; BRAMBILLA E., La fine dell’esorcismo: Possessione, santità, iste-
ria dall’età barocca all’illuminismo. Quaderni storici, 2003, 112: 117-163;
LAVENIA V., “Contes de bonnes femmes”: La medicina legale in Italia,
Naudé e la stregoneria. Bruniana & Campanelliana 2004; 10: 299-317.
32. CLARK S., Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern
Europe. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 190.
33. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. VII, p. 72.
34. Zacchia may have been influenced by Johann Wier, who he often cites. On this
subject, see VALENTE M., Johann Wier: Agli albori della critica razionale
dell’occulto e del demoniaco nell’Europa del Cinquecento. Firenze, Olschki,
2003.
35. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. VIII, p. 72.
36. On female pleasure, caused by the heat of male semen, see LAQUEUR T.,
Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge (Mass.),
Harvard University Press, 1990, pp. 25-62.
37. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. II, p. 63.
38. DASTON L., Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern
Europe. Critical Inquiry, 1991; 18 (1): 93-124.
39. BRAMBILLA E., Patologie miracolose e diaboliche nelle “Quaestiones
medico-legales” di Paolo Zacchia. In: PASTORE A., ROSSI G. (eds.) ref.
2, pp. 138-162.
140
Monstrosity and Bestiality
40. Therefore, Zacchia believed that Sprenger’s opinion was doubly wrong: both
because he affirmed the possibility of conception and because he believed
that it could result in monstrous or otherwise “infected” offspring. SPREN-
GER (INSTITOR) H., Malleus maleficarum. Frankfurt am Main, N. Bassaus,
1580, Par. 2, Quaest. 1, Chap. 4, p. 244-258.
41. AUGUST., Questions on the Heptateuch. I, XCIII.
42. HUET M.H., Monstrous Imagination. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1993, pp. 56-78; PANCINO C., Voglie materne: Storia di una
credenza. Bologna, Clueb, 1996, pp. 79-115.
43. BRAMBILLA E., see ref. 2, pp. 27-121.
44. GODET A., Nun was ist die Imagination anderst als ein Sonn im Menschen:
Studien zu einem Zentralbegriff des magischen Denkens. Zurich, Diss. Basel,
1982; GRIFFERO T. Immagini attive: Breve storia dell’immaginazione
transitiva. Florence, Le Monnier, 2003; DE CEGLIA F.P., It’s not true, but I
believe it. Discussions on jettatura in Naples between the end of the 18th and
beginning of the 19th century. Jour. Hist. Ideas 2011; 1: 75-97.
45. PANCINO C., see ref. 42, pp. 92-94.
46. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. II, p. 64.
47. For example, some believed that the “form” of the fetus could be changed
within three, seven, forty days, three months, etc. from conception. FEYENS
T., see ref. 14, Quaest. 22, pp. 304-324.
48. Quaestiones, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. II, p. 64. Zacchia cited numerous
sources that supported his position.
49. ARIST., De gen. an., IV, 767a 30-37. On this highly complex subject, see
BALME D.M., “Anthropos anthropon genna”: Human is Generated by
Human. In: DUNSTAN G.R. (ed.), The Human Embryo: Aristotle and the Ara-
bic and European Traditions. Exter, University of Exter Press, 1990, pp. 20-31.
50. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. II, p. 64.
51. GALEN, De usu part., 3, 1.
52. The hippotaurus – which corresponds to the mythological animal otherwise
called gimerou or jumarre – lived, according to legend, primarily in France.
According to Zacchia, a specimen had been given to Cardinal Scipione Bor-
ghese. Quaestiones, Book VII, Chap I, Quaest. IX, p. 83. The physician also
said that in Rome he had seen a hybrid of a deer and a cow, sent as a gift to
Cardinal Francesco Barberini.
53. Liceti, for example, accepted more distant crosses between species, and even
between man and virtually every species. LICETI F., ref. 28, Lib. 2, Cap. 68,
pp. 213-221.
141
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
54. Quaestiones, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. III, pp. 65-66.
55. ARIST., De gen. anim., 2, 4-5.
56. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. III, pp. 65-66
57. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap I, Quaest. III, p. 67.
58. CODRONCHI G.B., De vitiis vocis ... ac methodus testificandi. Frankfurt am
Main, A. Wechel, 1597.
59. FEDELE F., De relationibus medicorum (1602). Leipzig, Michael, 1674.
60. INGRASSIA G.F., Methodus dandi relationes. Catania, Prampolini, 1938.
The text was not published until the 20th century.
61. BAJADA J., Sexual Impotence: The Contribution of Paolo Zacchia (1584-
1659). Rome, Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1988. MARCHETTI
V., “L’invenzione della bisessualità”: “Discussioni fra teologi, medici e giu-
risti del XVII secolo sull’ambiguità dei corpi e delle anime. Milan, B. Mon-
dadori, 2001;” CAVALLAR O., KIRSHNER, Lo sguardo medico-legale di
Zacchia sugli ermafroditi. In: PASTORE A., ROSSI G. (eds.), see ref. 2, pp.
100-137; ROUSSEAU G., Policing the Anus: Stuprum and Sodomy accor-
ding to Paolo Zacchia’s Forensic Medicine. In: BORRIS K., ROUSSEAU
G. (eds.), The Science of Homosexuality in Early Modern Europe. Abington,
Routledge, 2008, pp. 72-91.
62. DASTON L., PARK K., see ref. 27.
63. OBSEQUENS J., De prodigiis. Amsterdam, H. and T. Boom, 1779, Cap. 46,
p. 26.
64. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book IX, Chap. I, pp. 171-186. On this subject, see
ZACCHIA P., Die Beseelung der menschlichen Fötus. Ed. B. Spitzer, Köln-
Weimer-Wien, Böhlau, 2002. On the debate, which would continue at length,
see BETTA E., Animare la vita: disciplina della nascita tra medicina e
morale nell‘Ottocento. Bologna, il Mulino, 2006.
65. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. III, pp. 68-69. About Zacchia,
Francesco Puccinotti said that “he really causes compassion, the great man
Zacchia ... when he comes to monsters which originate from the coupling of a
woman with a brute”. PUCCINOTTI F., Lezioni di medicina legale. Macerata,
G. Mancini-Cortesi, 1835, 1, Lect. 5, p. 82. On the probative mechanism that, in
the absence of full proof, tried to carefully consider the evidence, see ROSONI
I., “Quae singula non prosunt collecta iuvant:” La teoria della prova indiziaria
nell’età medievale e moderna. Milano, Giuffrè, 1995, pp. 73-79, 164-84.
66. PASTORE A., Il medico in tribunale: La perizia medica nella procedura
penale d’antico regime (secoli XVI-XVIII). Bellinzona, Casagrande, 1998; DE
RENZI S., Witnesses the Body: Medico-Legal Cases in Seventeenth-Century
142
Monstrosity and Bestiality
Rome. Stud. Hist. Phil. Scien. 2002; 33A: pp. 219-242. Of the dozens of trials
for bestiality reported by Dubois-Desaulle, thankfully none were based on a
teratological birth. See DUBOIS-DESAULLE G., Étude sur la bestialité au
point de vue historique, médical et juridique. Paris, C. Carrington, 1905, pp.
49-215.
67. BATES A.W., see ref. 24, p. 16. On the subject, see also DASTON L., The
Nature of Nature in Early Modern Europe. Configurations 1998; 6 (2):
149-172.
68. Quaestiones, Vol. III, Cons. XXII, p. 28.
69. THIJSSEN J.M., Twins as Monsters: Albertus Magnus’s Theory of the Gene-
ration of Twins and its Philosophical Context. Bull. Hist. Med. 1987; 61:
237-46; but also OAKS R.F., Things Fearful to Name: Sodomy and Buggery
in Seventeenth-Century New England. Journ. Soc. Hist. 1978; 12: 268-81.
70. SALISBURY J.E., The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages. New York:
Routlege, 1994, pp. 79-101.
71. NICCOLI O., “Menstruum quasi monstrum”: Monstrous Births and Men-
strual Taboo in the Sixteenth Century. In: MUIR E., RUGGIERO G. (eds.),
Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity Press, 1998, pp. 1-25.
72. FERNANDEZ A., The Repression of Sexual Behavior by the Aragonese
Inquisition between 1560 and 1700. Journ. Hist. Sex. 1997; 7 (4): 469-501.
73. EVAN E.P., The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals.
London, Heinemann, 1906.
74. COURTENY T., “Not Having God Before his Eyes”: Bestiality in Early
Modern England. Seventeenth Century 2011; 26 (11): 149-173.
75. Jens Rydström has shown that bestiality, masturbation and homosexuality
remained indistinct until the expansion of the medical discourse on these
issues, which occurred only in the 20th century. RYDSTRÖM J., “Sodomi-
tical Sins are Threefold”: Typologies of Bestiality, Masturbation and Homo-
sexuality in Sweden, 1880-1950. Journ. Hist. Sex. 2000; 9: 240-276.
76. FUDGE E., Monstrous Act: Bestiality in Early Modern England. Hist. Tod.
2000; 50: 20-25; McCANN C., Transgressing the Boundaries of Holiness:
Sexual Deviance in the Early Medieval Penitentials Handbooks of Ireland,
England and France 500-1000. PhD. Thesis, Seton Hall University, 2010,
pp. 48-53.
77. BATES A.W., see ref. 24, pp. 120-122.
78. PARE A., On Monsters and Marvels. Ed. and Transl. J.L. Pallister, Chicago
and London, University of Chicago Press, 1982, Chap. 3, p. 5.
143
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
79. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. VI, p. 72. On Zacchia’s
inconsistency, see LAVENIA V., ref. 31.
80. Quaestiones, Vol. II, Book VII, Chap. I, Quaest. IV, p. 69.
81. FEDELE F. see ref. 59, Book III, Chap. VII, pp. 509-513.
82. TASSO T., La Gerusalemme Liberata. 17, 70.
83. Zacchia could not find a rule that had any universal value, although he resolu-
tely denied the possibility of baptism when there was the suspicion of a union
with a beast. The monsters born to men, but which degenerated into another
species had nothing human about them. They were ascribable to moles and
“can be killed and thrown into the dunghill.” Quaestiones, Vo. II, Book VII,
Book I, Quaest. IV, p. 70. On infanticide in teratological births, see NICCOLI
O., Prophecy and People in Renaissance Italy. Princeton, Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1990, p. 33.
Correspondence should be addressed to:
francescopaolo.deceglia@uniba.it
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