Wondrous monsters: Representing conjoined twins in early sixteenth-century German broadsheets

In sixteenth-century Europe widely circulated broadsheets regularly reported the birth of physically monstrous children and animals, often regarded as signs of God's wrath and important heralds of misfortune. A negative understanding of these births has consequently dominated studies of the phenomenon. Yet a number of pre-Reformation publications represent such births, both textually and visually, in positive terms. Three cases of conjoined twins born in the German towns Worms, Ertingen, and Tettnang around 1500 demonstrate how children perceived as monstrous could nonetheless be viewed in a sympathetic light, interpreted as positive political omens, and even represented in the guise of the infant Christ.