Monster of Ravenna

Images of its grotesque features were interpreted symbolically by opponents of both the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation, although a more common explanation at the time was that the beast was an omen regarding the outcome of the Battle of Ravenna (1512).

The earliest account of the monster's existence is from the diarist Sebastiano di Branca Tedallini, who recorded on March 8 that news of a strange infant's birth had reached Pope Julius II in Rome.

[2][3][4] The tale was subsequently immortalized by further chroniclers of the era, including Johannes Multivallis, Jacques Rueff, Conrad Lycosthenes, Caspar Hedio, Pierre Boaistuau, Fortunio Liceti, and Ambroise Paré.

[6][a] In medieval Europe, it was common practice for malformed infants, especially those with little chance of survival, to be abandoned and left to die by starvation;[7] this was done in Ravenna on the order of the Pope.

[4][10] Giovanni Battista Bissoni was contracted to design the illustrations for the second edition of Fortunio Liceti's account, with the Monster of Ravenna centrally displayed on the frontispiece; by this point, the creature was well-established as possessing a single clawed foot.

[16] Others emphasized the specific vice of sexual immorality, as Pietro Martire d'Anghiera recorded the belief that the monster was born the illegitimate child of a married mother.