page_title: Monster of Ravenna
hierarchical_section_title: Monster of Ravenna
caption_attribution_description: CURIOUS CREATURES. 173 Like them also, there were three of them&#160;; but, unlike them, they had such lovely voices, and were so beautiful, that they lured seamen to their destruction, they having no power to combat the allurements of the Sirens&#160;; whilst the Harpies emitted an infectious smell, and spoiled what- ever they touched, with their filth, and excrements. Licetus, writing in 1634, and Zahn, in 1696, give the accompanying picture of a monster born at Ravenna in
context_page_description: The Monster of Ravenna was a possibly apocryphal late Renaissance-era monstrous birth whose appearance in early 1512 near the city of Ravenna was widely reported in contemporary European pamphlets and diaries. 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. Modern medical consensus identifies the monster as a child with some variety of severe congenital disorder.
context_section_description: The Monster of Ravenna was a possibly apocryphal late Renaissance-era monstrous birth whose appearance in early 1512 near the city of Ravenna was widely reported in contemporary European pamphlets and diaries. 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). Modern medical consensus identifies the monster as a child with some variety of severe congenital disorder.
caption: The Monster of Ravenna as depicted in the publication Curious Creatures, John Ashton, 1890.
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