Monster of Ravenna

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.