Manuscript note in Ulisse Aldrovandi’s commonplace book on an hermaphrodite born in Zurich in 1519; quotation from Conrad Lycosthenes: Prodigiorum ac ostentorum chronicon etc. Basel: Petri, 1557, p. 524

The project inquires into the sources of knowledge in early modern naturalist publications on preternatural phenomena, including monsters. Some of the cases expounded in these works sound both familiar and plausible to the modern ear. For example, there is not much reason to doubt an oft-repeated account of the birth of an hermaphroditic child in Zurich in 1519. Some of these reports sound far less familiar and less believable. Think of the birth of a lion or a horse with a human head and voice, or a race of centaurs allegedly living somewhere in the East. This project addresses the following questions: Where did these authors' knowledge of monsters and related phenomena come from? Which sources did they privilege: book learning or empirical observation of rare and extraordinary phenomena? Ultimately, what does this tell us about their reading and writing practices? Building on my earlier research on the medical and natural historical discourse on human hermaphroditism in early modern Europe, I analyse both visualizations and textual accounts of preternatural phenomena, including monsters, in naturalist publications from the late sixteenth through the early eighteenth centuries.