Critical Introduction

The images that accompany Ambroise Paré's On Monsters present a range of monster types, for which the text gives a variety of explanations. Paréclaims that the foal with the human face foretold a war between Florence and Pisa, and that the horned, winged, one-footed “hermaphroditic” monster arrived in concert with a bloody battle near Ravenna. On the other hand, he provides a rational scientific account of the origin of the two-headed girl, conjoined twins, and man with another man emerging from his belly. Paré, relying on the ancient doctor Hippocrates, informs us that these figures are all the result of too much semen and that their excesses are the result of this initial excess. The two-headed girl, we learn, was well-proportioned and lived for twenty-five years, making a living begging door to door in Bavaria before being driven out because monsters may ruin the fetuses of pregnant women. The woodcut illustrations are simple in technique, but the figures are strange and expressive. The so-called Monster of Ravenna is one of the most puzzling. It is a wild amalgam of human and bird, sciopod and unicorn, cyclops and (the text tells us, though the image demures) an intersexed person. The figure bears a sorrowful expression, as if mourning the losses of the dreadful battle that seems to have called it into existence, or as if suffering due to own monstrosity. Paréasserts that most monsters die young because they are scorned and loathed by all who see them. The conjoined figures are similarly curious. Both the two-headed girl and the man with a man emerging from his belly stand in the classical contrapposto post, in which the body's weight is placed on one leg and the other bends casually. This places these figures within classical conventions of beauty and balance.

Viewing Questions

Why has the artist here relied on classical tropes for beauty and balance? How does this influence our reception of the figures? The text moves between divine and biological explanations for the figures; is this reflected in the images?