Luca Baratta

Pluralità del corpo, molteplicità dei significati: Il mostro a sette teste nell’Europa della prima età moderna

This essay traces the long and complex afterlife of the seven-headed monster first reported in Invorio in 1578 and later reappearing – transformed in form and function – across early modern Europe. Through an investigation of printed sources, from Italian prodigy pamphlets to German Wunderzeichen and English newsbooks, the monster emerges as a powerful ‘plural body’: a mutable symbol of divine punishment, political disorder, religious satire, and imperial critique. By examining the multilingual and transnational circulation of this monstrous image, the article explores how its plurality of limbs mirrors the plurality of meanings it generated – revealing the fractured imagination of early modern Europe.

Keywords: Early Modern England; Plural Bodies; Seven-Headed Monster; Street Literature; Symbolic Readings of Physical Deformity.