Portraits of Human Monsters in the Renaissance: Dwarves, Hirsutes, and Castrati as Idealized Anatomical Anomalies

221 Pages·2018·50.34 MB·English

by  Touba Ghadessi

Portraits of Human Monsters in the Renaissance
Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons:
Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity
SERIES EDITORS
Kathleen Perry Long Luke Morgan
Cornell University Monash University, Australia
SERIES ADVISORy BOARD
Elizabeth B. Bearden Maria Fabricius Hansen
University of Wisconsin University of Copenhagen
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen Virginia A. Krause
George Washington University Brown University
Surekha Davies Jennifer Spinks
Western Connecticut State University University of Melbourne
Richard H. Godden Debra Higgs Strickland
Louisiana State University University of Glasgow
Wes Williams
University of Oxford
See our website for further information on this series and its publications.
Medieval Institute Publications is a program of
The Medieval Institute, College of Arts and Sciences
Portraits of Human Monsters in the Renaissance
Dwarves, Hirsutes, and Castrati as
Idealized Anatomical Anomalies
Touba Ghadessi
Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons:
Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity
MEDIEVAL InSTITuTE PuBLICATIOnS
Western Michigan university
Kalamazoo
Copyright © 2018 by the Board of Trustees of Western Michigan university
Publication is made possible in part by a gift from Elizabeth and Todd Warnock to the
Department of Art History at northwestern university.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
are available from the Library of Congress.
ISBn 978-1-580442-75-6
e-ISBn 978-1-580442-76-3
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright
reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored
in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both
the copyright owner and the author of the book.
Contents
List of Plates vii
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1 Difference as an Inquiry 9
2 Renaissance Portrait and Intellectual Frame 41
3 Perfected Miniatures: Dwarves at Court 53
4 A Civilized Savage: The Hirsute’s Conquest 99
5 Audible Absence: The Castrato’s Voice 133
Epilogue 167
Bibliography 171
Index 193

List of Plates
Plate 1. Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Morgante, ca. 1547, Galleria degli uffizi, Florence
Plate 2. Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of Antoinette Gonsalvus, 1595, Musée des Beaux-Arts
du Château de Blois, Blois. RMn-Grand Palais/Art Resource, new york
Plate 3. Andrea Sacchi, Portrait of Marc’Antonio Pasqualini, 1640, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, new york
Plate 4. Agnolo Bronzino, Cosimo I de’Medici as Orpheus, ca. 1539, Philadelphia
Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Plate 5. Agostino Carracci, Composition with Figures and Animals: Hairy Harry, Mad
Peter and Tiny Amon, 1598, Museo di Capodimonte, naples. Scala/Ministero per i Bene
e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, new york
Plate 6. Joris Hoefnagel, Plate I from Animalia Rationalia et Insecta (Ignis), ca. 1575–80,
national Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Plate 7. Joris Hoefnagel, Plate II from Animalia Rationalia et Insecta (Ignis), ca. 1575–80,
national Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Plate 8. Jusepe de Ribera(?), Portrait of Madeleine Gonsalvus(?), ca. 1615, Thomas
Agnew & Sons, London

List of Illustrations
Figure 1.1. Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Papal Ass of Rome, from
Melanchthon and Luther Deuttung der zwo grewlichen Figuren, 1523,
© The Trustees of The British Museum, London 11
Figure 1.2. ulisse Aldrovandi, the monster of Ravenna, page 369,
De monstrorum historia, 1642, Wheaton College Permanent Collection,
newell Bequest Fund, norton, Massachusetts 13
Figure 1.3. Jan van Kalkar, title page of Andreas Vesalius
De humani corporis fabrica, 1543. HIP/Art Resource, new york 14
Figure 1.4. Ambroise Paré, illustration for conjoined twins, page 647,
Les Oeuvres d’Ambroise Paré, conseiller et premier chirurgien du roy.
Douziesme Edition, Chez Jean Gregoire, 1664, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich 18
Figure 1.5. Ambroise Paré, illustration for a man lacking a limb, page 656,
Les Oeuvres d’Ambroise Paré, conseiller et premier chirurgien du roy.
Douziesme Edition, Chez Jean Gregoire, 1664, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich 19
Figure 1.6. Ambroise Paré, illustration for a half-man, half-pig monster,
page 665, Les Oeuvres d’Ambroise Paré, conseiller et premier chirurgien
du roy. Douziesme Edition, Chez Jean Gregoire, 1664, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich 20
Figure 1.7. ulisse Aldrovandi, a marine monster, page 356, De monstrorum
historia, 1642, Wheaton College Permanent Collection, newell Bequest
Fund, norton, Massachusetts 25
Figure 1.8. ulisse Aldrovandi, a half-dog, half-human conjoined twin
monster, page 366, De monstrorum historia, 1642, Wheaton College
Permanent Collection, newell Bequest Fund, norton, Massachusetts 26
Figure 1.9. ulisse Aldrovandi, the dwarf of Charles de Créquy, page 40,
De monstrorum historia, 1642, Wheaton College Permanent Collection,
newell Bequest Fund, norton, Massachusetts 27