Monday, November 24, 2014

De Monstris

Fortunius Licetus - De Monstris (1665)

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I read enough Latin to understand the title and, well, that's about it.  The reason for including the book is the illustrations, a few of which are shown below.  Though they seem imaginative along the lines of "there are people elsewhere who have faces in their chests" at least some of the later ones are apparently taken from actual bodies.  In any case I find them all a bit unsettling.

Liceti was a doctor, professor and general intellectual with an extensive output (over 50 books).  He was a buddy of Galileo, Thomas Browne might have attended his lectures and there's a crater on the moon named after him.  As far as I can tell nothing has been translated into English.