Content area
Full text
Merry Wiesner-Hanks, The Marvelous Hairy Girls: The Gonzales Sisters and Their Worlds (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. xiii + 248, £18.99/$30.00, hardback, ISBN: 978-0-300-12733-1.
Maddalena, Francesca and Antonietta were the daughters of Petrus Gonzales (c. 1537-1618). Along with their father and their brothers, Enrico and Orazio, they exhibited the symptoms of congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa: much of their bodies, including the face, were covered with hair. Petrus Gonzales was a minor celebrity of his time, and resided at the court of Henri II of France. He was given a superior education, and many a visitor to King Henri's court must have been astonished when the hairy 'wild man' addressed them in Latin. The Gonzales family became popular with painters, scientists, and lovers of curiosities throughout Europe....