Aldrovandi — Seven Folio Leaves of Human Deformities and Monstrosities from the Monstrorum Historia, Bologna 1642

Seven folio leaves from Ulysses Aldrovandi's Monstrorum Historia (Bologna, 1642), drawn from the chapters on monstrous births, hairy children, hybrid creatures, and infants born with conditions that early modern medicine struggled to explain. Each leaf is printed on both sides, giving fourteen pages of original text and woodcut illustration in total.

This is the most powerful section of the entire Opera Omnia for collectors interested in the history of medicine, the early modern category of the "monstrous," and the porous boundary between teratology and natural philosophy that defined the discipline before Linnaeus. The illustrations include some of the most reproduced images from any early scientific book.

**Plates included**

Page 127: Homo cornutus — the horned man
Page 571: Infans canine — child with canine features
Page 572: Hermaphrodite figure with eagle feet
Page 579: Aethiops & Virgo villosa — depicting an Ethiopian child and the Hairy Maiden, the figure widely identified by historians of medicine as a member of the Gonsalvus family
Page 586: Monstrum capitio carnoso — figure with a fleshy growth on the head
Page 587: Homuncio cum substantia carnosa — figure with fleshy substance about the chest
Page 589: Infans cute lacerata — infant with torn skin
Page 590: Equus cute lacera — horse with torn skin (included as a comparative case)

Plus accompanying letterpress on the verso of several leaves, including the discussion on page 580 that explicitly references "Henricus, King of the Gauls, having a hairy man educated in Latin at Paris" — a documented allusion to Petrus Gonsalvus of Tenerife, whose family is associated by some scholars with the development of the Animal Bridegroom folk tale tradition that includes Beauty and the Beast.

**Key Details**

Author: Ulysses Aldrovandi (1522–1605)
Edited by: Bartholomaeus Ambrosinus
Published: Bologna, Nicolas Tebaldini, 1642
From: Monstrorum Historia cum Paralipomenis historiae omnium animalium
Medium: Original 17th-century woodcuts on laid paper
Format: Seven folio leaves, each printed both sides (recto and verso)
Size: Approximately 24 × 36 cm (9.5" × 14") each
Condition: Very good, with crisp impressions and only light age toning consistent with the period

**Provenance**

From a broken-up library copy of the 1642 Bologna edition, formerly in the collection of Eduardo Obejero Urquiza per ex libris evidence. The lithographed bookplate itself does not accompany these leaves.

**Scholarly Note: The Hairy Maiden and the Gonsalvus Family**

The Virgo villosa on page 579 depicts a young woman with hypertrichosis universalis — a condition causing dense hair growth across the entire body. The accompanying Latin text on page 580 explicitly identifies the source: a hairy man brought to the French court of Henri II to be educated in Latin at Paris, and his children kept at the Farnese court at Parma. This documents the case of Petrus Gonsalvus, born in Tenerife in 1556, who lived at the French and Parmese courts and whose affected daughter Antonietta was painted by Lavinia Fontana around 1583 in a portrait now held at the Château de Blois.

The Gonsalvus family is associated by some historians of folklore with the development of the Animal Bridegroom story type that culminated in Madame de Villeneuve's 1740 tale of Beauty and the Beast. This Aldrovandi leaf is therefore not simply a medical illustration but a documented sixteenth-century witness to one of the most consequential cases in the history of human variation — a case that left traces in court portraiture, in Latin natural history, and arguably in European fairy tale tradition.

**Tax & Buyer Protection**

VAT-exempt: Over 100 years old, original print
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