Ah, the Renaissance. A period of tremendous social progression and scientific achievement. It was a cultural rescue from the stagnation of the Late Middle Ages, and most importantly, how the Ninja Turtles got their names. And though no legacy can compare to those totally tubular turtles, it’s also worth mentioning that the period produced some of the most famous art in history.

Renaissance art represented a huge advancement in realism due to the movement’s scientific investigations into anatomy, perspective, and light. This really comes through in its masterfully skillful paintings… most of the time. Any big leap forward is bound to have its stumbling points, and a lot of Renaissance paintings are evidence of that. Whether creepy, cryptic, or just downright puzzling, here are ten Renaissance paintings with images that are enlighten-mental.

10 Most Everything by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was a talented 16th-century Italian painter who spent his life painting lifelike but expressive portraits of nobles, their families, and their pets. His whole career was very standard and he never really found a way to stand out. Just kidding. He was a total weirdo who painted people made of fruit, cuts of meat, household objects, and even other people.

The funny thing is that Arcimboldo really could paint realistic portraits and the like, but he still dedicated his career to creating the weirdest fruit people you’ve ever seen. He would draw, for example, the Holy Roman Emperor as a sculpture made of vegetables—the firm head-of-cabbage shoulders are particularly flattering. Another gem is “The Cook,” which depicts the titular chef as a demonic assemblage of roasted pigs and pheasants. The casual absurdism of his work makes Arcimboldo the Eric Andre of Renaissance painters.

9 “The Creation of Adam” and His Brain

“The Creation of Adam” is one of the most famous paintings in history. You may know it as the ‘God doing the E.T. finger’ painting, as part of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, or as a hilarious set-piece from Arrested Development. Either way, the work is iconic. Painted at the beginning of the 1500s, it wasn’t until almost 500 years later that a doctor noticed an unusual and hidden anatomic detail to the painting.

Behind God are twelve figures (whose nature is debated) and a swirling pink cloak, all of which combine to form a surprisingly accurate outline of the human brain. Further, the folds in the cloak and placement of the figures and their limbs divide the brain into its major sections—cerebrum, frontal lobes, brain stem, its artery, and even smaller pieces like the pituitary gland—again to a high level of accuracy. Why Michelangelo did this is unknown, but the most dramatic take is that the artist was trying to sneak in his belief that God is a product of the human mind.

8 “The Ambassadors” and Their Skull

Hans Holbein the Younger painted “The Ambassadors” for one of two reasons: either to hide some Dan Brown-esque message or just to be a troll. At first glance, the work is just a double portrait, showing two men leaning on a shelf (and looking really unimpressed with the whole affair). But hidden in the painting, and not-so-hidden, are about a dozen weird details that historians still debate.

The most famous is the giant skull between the two men’s legs. Its presence is obvious from the start, but its true nature is obscured due to extreme anamorphosis—meaning you can only see its actual shape from a certain angle. It’s like those hyper-realistic sidewalk drawings that only look right from one specific spot, and otherwise look like funhouse mirror distortions. Why Holbein did this is unknown, but many scholars believe it is just because he could.

7 “An Allegory with Venus and Cupid” and Syphilis

Angolo Bronzino’s “An Allegory with Venus and Cupid” is another that looks quite normal at first glance. Heck, even at a second and third glance. But like most masterpieces, it’s been pored over again and again, generating at least one interesting take on the whole work: a warning of the dangers of syphilis.

Syphilis had just begun to ravage Europe in the decades before this painting was produced, and supposedly the work is about the disease from corner to corner. The painting is pretty blatantly sexual, and all its characters apparently pay the price. One is stabbed by a thorn and does not notice—like syphilitic nerve damage. There are also missing fingernails, swollen fingers, patchy alopecia, red eyes, and toothless gums—all either symptoms of syphilis or side effects from its treatment. The moral: even if you’re the goddess of love herself, reckless, unprotected sex is a big no-no.

6 “The Arnolfini Portrait” and the Weird Flex

When Jan van Eyck painted “The Arnolfini Portrait,” he wasn’t just after portraying a scene or its subjects; he wanted to flex his muscles. Van Eyck was a master, one of the best painters of his day, and is even credited with inventing the modern form of oil painting. “The Arnolfini Portrait” was his subtle, sneaky way of proving he could do even more.

The main painting shows a man and woman getting married and is simply masterful in its perspective and realism. But van Eyck blows that completely out of the water in just one small section. Hanging on the back wall of the scene is a mirror, and within the mirror, a perfect recreation of the scene from behind, including the mirror’s natural fish-eye effect. That’s right, within the painting is a whole other painting of the first painting from behind, and it displays a technical aptitude previously unseen in its field.

5 “The Garden of Earthly Delights” has Hidden Music

Hieronymus Bosch is famous for his surreal, symbolic, nightmarish depictions of religious scenery, like if Michelangelo and Salvador Dali had an old Dutch baby. His most famous works are big, sprawling altarpieces like “The Last Judgement,” “The Temptation of St. Anthony,” and most famous of all, “The Garden of Earthly Delights.”

The piece shows three scenes: one is likely Eden, one possibly Earth, and one Hell. Each is filled with dozens and dozens of trippy images, but one stands out. In the Hell scene, a series of musicians are tortured with their instruments, and one evidently was punished by having music tattooed on his butt. Well, one music student transcribed that music, and now we can all listen to the “600-year-old butt music from hell.”

4 The Voynich manuscript

Though not itself a painting, the infamous Voynich Manuscript contains dozens of paintings within it, and each is stranger than the last. The manuscript is a hand-written and hand-illustrated journal and from cover to cover is a complete mystery.

For one thing, the whole journal is written in its own unique language, which has never been successfully translated. It seems unlikely to be just a hoax, as the writing bears all the telltale signs of actual language. In addition, the book is filled with cryptic paintings that depict, among others: alien-like plants, ornate diagrams of unknown items/codes/philosophies, religious scenes of nymphs and angels, dragons, odd sculptures, and new constellations. The person who wrote the manuscript, why they wrote it, and what it was meant to be used for are still completely unknown, but it seems to come from somewhere in Italy in the 15th century.

3 “Madonna with Saint Giovannino” and a UFO

Domenico Ghirlandaio’s “Madonna with Saint Giovannino” is 99% normal religious Renaissance painting, but it’s the 1% that attracts attention. The painting is a scene of the Madonna, Saint John, and baby Jesus, and most notably- a little blob in the background sky.

The blob, which appears to be flying, is a grayish disk and emits glowing gold rays from all around it. Also in the background are a man and his dog. Both are looking up at the object, the man shielding his eyes from the harsh golden light. Naturally, many have interpreted this as a UFO and cite it as evidence of (semi-)ancient aliens.

2 “The Last Supper” Soundtrack

“The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous pieces of art in existence. Because of that, and because its subject material is the last supper of Christ with his apostles (including Judas the betrayer), it has been the subject of constant interpretation and reinterpretation by scholars. There are claims of numerology, a hidden Mary Magdalene, and more. Another is, and I can’t believe I’m typing this again, a hidden musical score in the painting.

Yes, apparently Bosch isn’t the only one. Using the table as a base to start the staff lines and the positions of the subjects’ hands and the pieces of bread they hold (symbols of the body of Christ) as music notes, a short piece emerges. It’s been described as a solemn requiem; a sad little piece meant to lament the impending death of Christ, which some interpret as a secret nod to da Vinci’s otherwise dubious faith.

1 Ugly Babies

This weird image isn’t in one painting but hundreds. For some reason, it took artists thousands of years to figure out what children look like. Hundreds of positively gorgeous scenes, with beautiful adult subjects and precise perspective, have been marred by puzzlingly ugly children. Not just ugly, but hideous, like little pint-size Steve Buscemi’s without the charm.

Ugly babies are such a common phenomenon that it has its own dedicated Tumblr, coffee-table books, and scholarly studies attempting to find the cause. One theory suggests that because Christian churches commissioned most paintings, their child subjects were all modeled after the baby Christ, who was born perfectly formed and unchanged. That would make him look like a tiny adult man, a DeVito if you will, and hence the baby’s ugliness. Whether this “homuncular Jesus” theory is right or not, it’s hard to explain away just how grotesque these little monsters were.

The Renaissance wasn’t just a revolution in the arts, but also the sciences, particularly mathematics. There was a marked proliferation of mathematical societies and institutions across Europe around this time, like the Accademia dei Lincei in Italy and the Royal Society in England, which in turn produced some of the best mathematical minds in history. 

10. Marino Ghetaldi

Marin Getaldic, also known as Marino Ghetaldi or Marinus Ghetaldus, was a notable Renaissance mathematician from Dubrovnik, Croatia. Born in the late 16th century, he excelled at math from an early age, and would work with other known mathematicians, like Christopher Clavius and François Viète, throughout his career. 

Ghetaldi was known for reconstructing the lost works of Apollonius and several other mathematical papers, including ones on physics and parabolas. Ghetaldi’s interest in scientific instruments, particularly optical devices, grew after his encounters with Galileo. His most remarkable contributions, however, were in the emerging field of applying algebraic concepts to geometry, which led to the development of Cartesian geometry. His contributions to mathematics and specifically geometry have since been acknowledged by scholars like Christian Huygens and Edmond Halley. 

9. Gemma Frisius

Born as Regnier Gemma in Friesland, Netherlands, in 1508, Gemma Frisius was a mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer during the Renaissance period. Despite a difficult childhood marked by poverty, Gemma went on to study medicine and mathematics at the University of Louvain, eventually becoming a leading theoretical mathematician and professor at the same university. 

Gemma made important contributions in the development of maps, globes, and other astronomical instruments. In 1529, he published a corrected version of Apianus’s Cosmographia. He also designed a combined terrestrial and celestial globe, along with his book De Principiis Astronomiae Cosmographicae, which introduced map designs that would remain in use for decades to come. Gemma described a unique method to determine longitude using a clock and later expanded it to finding the longitude at sea, which turned out to be the solution to the long-standing problem of finding the longitude at sea. 

8. John Napier

John Napier was a Scottish mathematician and theological writer known for his invention of logarithms. He was born in 1550 in Merchiston Castle, near Edinburgh, Scotland, though we don’t know much else about his early life.

Napier was always interested in the inventions of war, as he worked on various military devices throughout his career, like burning mirrors, artillery pieces, and a metal chariot. His most notable contribution to mathematics was his invention of logarithms. He started working on them around 1594, though his work on the topic was only published after his death. Logarithms simplified calculations, especially multiplication, by transforming them into simple addition problems.

7. Scipione Del Ferro

Also known as Scipio del Ferro was a Renaissance-era mathematician from Bologna, Italy. Born in 1465, he attended the University of Bologna, where he’d later work as a lecturer in arithmetic and geometry in 1496 – a position he held until his death in 1526. Although none of his original work has survived, Ferro is credited with finding a solution to an unsolved cubic equation at the time. 

This solution hugely contributed to the study of fractions with irrational denominators, though his mathematical achievements largely remained unknown during his lifetime. Most of his findings were written in a personal notebook, which was passed on to his son-in-law, Hannibal Nave, after his death. The notebook contained Ferro’s solution to the cubic equation, which gained popularity when another influential Renaissance-era mathematician, Girolamo Cardano, discovered and published it in one of his own works.

6. Regiomontanus

Regiomontanus, also called Johannes Müller von Königsberg, was a prominent German scholar born in Königsberg, Bavaria in 1436. He received education at home and later attended the Universities of Leipzig and Vienna, where he became a pupil and friend of Georg von Peuerbach – another notable astronomer of the time.

Regiomontanus and Peuerbach would go on to collaborate on many astronomical topics, like the discrepancy between the predicted and observed positions of planets and lunar eclipses. They also worked on translating and critiquing Ptolemy’s Almagest, which Regiomontanus completed after Peuerbach’s death. This translation, known as the Epitome of the Almagest, played a huge role in Copernicus’ refutation of Ptolemy’s geocentric model. 

5. Luca Pacioli

Luca Pacioli was born in Borgo San Sepolcro, Tuscany around 1445. He’d go on to become an influential mathematician and educator of his era, receiving his early training in Venice and Rome under the guidance of figures like Piero della Francesca and Leon Battista Alberti. Pacioli’s passion for math led him to compile and summarize many works of his contemporaries.

Pacioli’s works not only made the mathematical knowledge of the time accessible to more people, but also introduced the modern system of double-entry bookkeeping, leading many to regard him as the ‘Father of Accounting’. His use of journals, ledgers, and the concept of balancing debits with credits massively contributed to the development of modern accounting practices. Pacioli is also remembered for his collaboration with Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, which further improved his own work. 

4. Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia

Often referred to as just Tartaglia, Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia was an Italian mathematician and physicist who lived from 1499 to 1557. He saw war and destruction at an early age, as he survived the French sack of Brescia in 1512 that left him severely injured. Despite these serious challenges, Tartaglia was good at math and eventually settled in Venice as a mathematics teacher.

Tartaglia made many contributions to the fields of physics and mathematics, particularly ballistics. He refuted Aristotle’s claim that air sustained motion, claiming instead that air resisted motion and that projectile physics should be studied in conditions without any air resistance. His groundbreaking work on ballistics, including his 1537 book, Nova Scientia, published in 1537, laid the foundation for the modern science of projectiles. Tartaglia also made notable contributions to other areas of mathematics, as he was one of the first mathematicians to provide workable solutions for cubic equations.

3. Francois Viète

François Viète was a Renaissance-era French mathematician and astronomer who made many contributions to the field of algebra. Born in Fontenay-le-Comte, France, in 1540, Viète studied law at the University of Poitiers before beginning his career as an attorney. His mathematical journey began when he was hired to educate the daughter of a prominent military leader, where he wrote some of his earliest treatises and works. 

France experienced some of its most turbulent and politically-unstable times during Viète’s lifetime, as there was an ongoing war between the Protestant and Catholic factions of the empire. Despite that, he continued work as a mathematician for Henry IV, where he was tasked with deciphering code against other European powers. 

His most notable contribution to mathematics is his formulation of the first systematic algebraic notations in his book In Artem Analyticam Isagoge, and to a lesser extent in the Canon Mathematicus, which deals with the concepts of trigonometry and astronomy. 

2. Tycho Brahe

While most people have likely never heard of him, Tycho Brahe, born in Sweden in 1546, made many fundamental contributions to the field of astronomy. Raised by his uncle, Jørgen Brahe, Tycho initially studied law at the University of Copenhagen. However, he would soon turn to astronomy after witnessing a total solar eclipse at the age of 14, which sparked his interest in the subject. 

Tycho continued his astronomy studies at the University of Leipzig, where he made his first recorded observations. He largely worked on improving the field through accurate observations and precise data, which led him to build his own observatory near Copenhagen. There, he designed and built advanced instruments, calibrated them, and carried out nightly observations. 

Tycho Brahe’s contributions to astronomy were profound, as they laid the foundation for future discoveries. Even before the advent of the telescope, Tycho was able to accurately map the entire Solar System, along with the positions of more than 777 fixed stars. His work challenged many prevailing theories of the time, like Aristotle’s notion of an immutable universe, and set the stage for other revolutionary insights of the coming years, like the heliocentric model proposed by Copernicus. 

1. Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician and astronomer who massively advanced our understanding of planets. His three fundamental laws of planetary motion revolutionized the field and are in use to this day, as they transformed Copernicus’s heliocentric view into a dynamic universe with non-circular planetary orbits.

Apart from his achievements in astronomy, Kepler made important contributions to optics and geometry, including the first proof of logarithms and an explanation for the behavior of light inside telescopes. Interestingly, Kepler’s scientific work remained intertwined with his theological and astrological beliefs throughout his life, as he believed that the universe’s design was governed by God. Regardless, some of his works were so influential that they paved the way for other phenomenal works of the future, including some of Isaac Newton’s foundational principles of physics.

Usually, when people think of English Renaissance drama, they think of the plays by Shakespeare that they studied in school, such as Romeo and Juliet (1597) and Hamlet (c. 1599–1601). English Renaissance theater (also known as Elizabethan or Jacobean) refers to the theater of England between 1558 and 1642. Nowadays, English Renaissance plays are often thought of as highbrow, with their impressive monologues about love and death and everything in-between. But during this time, going to the theatre was the standard entertainment of the day. As a result, the plays are sometimes absolutely wild.

While serious and heartfelt speeches were often included, audiences also had a taste for over-the-top deaths, outlandish situations, and dirty jokes. Here are 10 of the weirdest moments from English Renaissance theater. Spoiler warnings ahead (but to be fair, they are all over 400 years old).

Related: 10 Shakespeare Authorship Theories That Will Surprise You

10 Necrophilia in The Revenger’s Tragedy

Revenge tragedies were all the rage during the Renaissance, and Thomas Middleton’s satiric The Revenger’s Tragedy sends up this violent genre. This 1606 play features the typical elements of disguise and deception but employs them in morbidly sexual ways. It basically stages necrophilia, though the person committing the act is unaware of the dead state of the recipient.

The play starts with Vindice wanting to get revenge on the Duke who poisoned his fiancée when she refused to sleep with him nine years previously. He has been creepily carrying around her skull ever since. Vindice puts on a disguise and is hired by the Duke as a pimp. In an act of poetic justice, he poisons the skull of his dead lover and places it on a dummy dressed up as an attractive woman. Thinking it is a shy prostitute, the Duke kisses the deadly effigy “like a slobbering Dutchman” (III.v.164), after which his teeth and tongue rot away.^[1]

9 Lioness Attack in As You Like It

Shakespeare’s As You Like It (1599) contains the famous “All the world’s a stage” speech (II.vii.139). And, as in many of his plays, it features people falling in love at first sight and gender-bending disguises. The male lead, Orlando, is forced into the forest by his mean-spirited older brother, Oliver. Of course, as the play is a comedy, they make up toward the end, but Shakespeare’s choice of reconciliation is certainly inventive.

Orlando sees Oliver sleeping against a tree with a lioness crouched nearby, ready to go in for the kill. Shakespeare overlooked the fact that lions have been extinct in Europe for thousands of years. Instead of leaving his brother to die, which he genuinely considers, Orlando fights the big cat: “The lioness had torn some flesh away, / Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted” (IV.iii.156-7). Orlando’s bravery causes Oliver to repent for his earlier cruelty, though a wolf attack could have achieved the same outcome.^[2]

8 Devil-Dog in The Witch of Edmonton

Written by William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, and John Ford in 1621, The Witch of Edmonton was inspired by the real-life Elizabeth Sawyer, who had been executed for witchcraft that same year. In the play, Sawyer is shunned by her neighbors after being wrongly accused of witchcraft. However, she decides that she has nothing left to lose, so she gets revenge by selling her soul to the Devil.

The Devil doesn’t appear to her as a man, though. Instead, he takes the form of a dog called Tom (although onstage, he was obviously played by a human actor). Sawyer can be seen as a sympathetic character, but her relationship with the Devil-Dog is vaguely—and weirdly—sexual. She asks him to “Stand on thy hind-legs up. Kiss me, my Tommy” (IV.i.170) and then demands “Let’s tickle.” (IV.i.173). While reports of witchcraft sometimes involved sexual acts with the Devil, it feels extra weird when he’s in animal form.^[3]

7 Bottom’s Donkey Head in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written in 1595 or 1596, is set in a forest inhabited by fairies, so you know some wild stuff is going to happen. As the title would suggest, the comedy has a dream-like quality to it. Midway through, the mischievous sprite, Puck, takes Bottom’s name as another word for ass and transforms his head into a donkey’s head.

Puck had previously given Titania, Queen of the Fairies, a love potion that compelled her to fall in love with the first creature she saw upon waking. That creature just so happens to be Bottom. So despite his half-man half-donkey appearance, she declares that “So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape. / And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me / On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee” (III.i.127-9). Thankfully, the play isn’t a tragedy, so Bottom eventually gets his human head back.^[4]

6 Poisoned Portrait and Hat in The White Devil

John Webster’s The White Devil (1612) is based on the real-life murder of Vittoria Accoramboni in Padua 27 years earlier. Webster’s version of the tale contains all the ingredients of a typical Renaissance tragedy, such as adultery and corruption. Brachiano has fallen in love with Vittoria, but they each have spouses. However, the answer to every problem in a tragedy is, of course, murder.

Brachiano’s wife has a nightly ritual of kissing a portrait of her husband, but poison has been applied to it, and she dies. Vittoria’s husband, Camillo, is killed by her brother, Flamineo, when they decide to have a gymnastics competition (as you often do, I’m sure). Flamineo breaks Camillo’s neck and then arranges his body under the vaulting horse to make it look like an accident. Brachiano is later killed after poison is sprinkled into the helmet that he wears at a tournament, prompting him to cry out, “O, my brain’s on fire” (V.iii.4). However, it doesn’t kill him quickly enough, so he is then strangled.^[5]

5 Merlin Being Born as an Adult in The Birth of Merlin

When most people think of the wizard Merlin, they probably conjure up an image of an old man with a beard. Well, William Rowley decided Merlin should be born like that. His play The Birth of Merlin (1622) is about a woman named Joan, who has been impregnated by a stranger, and her brother, who happens to be a clown. The story follows them as they wander through a forest looking for a man to be a father to her unborn child (which doesn’t seem like a great plan).

It turns out that the Devil is the father, and instead of having a baby, Joan gives birth to a grown man. However, how that is physically possible is left unanswered. The Devil being Merlin’s father is actually rooted in traditional mythology; it is being half-demon that gives Merlin his prophetic powers. But the wizard being born as an adult was Rowley’s idea. Merlin’s clown-uncle comments on how bizarre this is: “a child to speak, eat, and go the first hour of his birth; nay, such a baby as had need of a barber before he was born, too; why, sister, this is monstrous” (III.iv.45-7).^[6]

4 Cannibalism in Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus (c. 1588–1593) is one of Shakespeare’s least staged plays, primarily because of its extreme violence. It depicts the cycle of revenge between Titus, a Roman general, and Tamora, Queen of the Goths. Lucy Bailey’s production of the play, staged at The Globe in London in 2006 and 2014, was so grotesque that it caused some spectators to faint.

Titus sacrifices one of Tamora’s sons and kills one of his own sons during an argument. Two of Tamora’s sons murder a man so that they can rape Titus’s daughter Lavinia. They cut off her tongue and hands so that she is unable to reveal their names, but she outsmarts them. Titus cuts the throats of her rapists as Lavinia holds a basin to catch their blood. He explains that he will “grind their bones to powder small / And with this hateful liquor temper it; / And in that paste let their vile heads be baked” (V.ii.250-2). Tamora then eats the pies that her sons have been baked into. Titus is basically the prototype for Mrs. Lovett of Sweeney Todd fame.^[7]

3 Incest in ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore

John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore (c. 1626–1633) controversially depicts incest. It is about the sexual relationship between brother and sister, Giovanni and Annabella. Their love is portrayed as both sinful and sincere. A reviewer of a 2014 production of the play explains that it “is unsettling” because of “Ford’s refusal to either condone or condemn incest: he simply presents it as an unstoppable force.”

Giovanni gets Annabella pregnant, and she marries another man to conceal the relationship. The play ends with Giovanni stabbing Annabella then telling everyone of their incestuous affair while he holds her heart skewered on a dragger. He explains that “For nine months space, in secret I enjoy’d / Sweet Annabella’s sheets” but “her too fruitful womb too soon bewray’d / The happy passage of our stolen delights” (V.vi.43-4, 47-8). This revelation causes the sibling’s father, Florio, to die of shock.^[8]

2 The Bear in The Winter’s Tale

The Winter’s Tale (c. 1610–1611) progresses as a regular Shakespearean tragedy until Act III, Scene iii, where Antigonus abandons baby Perdita in the woods. Then the funniest and most famous stage direction in all of Shakespeare’s plays occurs: “Exit, pursued by a bear.” Of course, a real bear wouldn’t have been used on stage, although bears were used for other forms of entertainment in Renaissance London, but the moment is startling all the same.

The sudden materialization and then exit of this bear isn’t the only funny or odd moment in the play, though. Hermione, Queen of Sicily and mother of Perdita, dies, and her husband has a statue built to commemorate her. The statue then comes to life somehow, and Hermione is restored. It also features a scene where a servant is comically unaware that the word dildo has a sexual meaning. It is potentially the first recorded use of the word, so thanks for the dildo jokes, Shakespeare.^[9]

1 Lycanthropia in The Duchess of Malfi

John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (1613) is another play loosely based on real events. It is about the titular Duchess who marries a man beneath her class, setting off a chain of murderous events involving her two brothers and a man they hire as a spy. Toward the end of the play, it is revealed that one of the brothers, Ferdinand, felt so much shame over murdering his sister that he lost grip on reality and now suffers from lycanthropia, the belief that one has become a wolf.

A doctor explains that the disease causes him to “Steal forth to church-yards in the dead of night, / And dig dead bodies up” (V.ii.14-5). He explains that Ferdinand was found “Behind Saint Mark’s church, with the leg of a man / Upon his shoulder; and he howl’d fearfully” (V.ii.17-8). The other brother, the Cardinal, displays no remorse. After revealing his part in his sister’s murder to his mistress, he forces her to take an oath of silence by kissing a bible. But he has poisoned the bible, and she dies instantly. Renaissance playwrights certainly loved to kill characters with poisoned objects.^[10]