Page 47 - Mediterraneo e dintorni - nr 1 -2020

BeAutY AnD the BeAst: the true storY to plan for the Savage. According to legend, Catherine had a
faint when they told her who they had decided to marry her;
edro and Catherine Gonzales, who inspired the famous then, probably encouraged by the not indifferent entity of the
Pfairy tale of Beauty and the Beast, lived between the sixte- promessale dowry, the young woman accepted. Catherine also
enth and seventeenth centuries. much has been written about gave hairless sons to Pedro, but little is known of them: unlike
their life. Sometimes inaccurately. Once upon a time ... The the hairy ones, though the sons of a gentleman, they were not
Beast. At the end of the 16th century, the Canary Archipelago the object of any interest. The beauty of the girl and the strong
was submitted to the Spaniards who exterminated the natives contrast with her husband’s animal-like appearance inspired
and deported the survivors, reducing them to slavery. Among the folk motif of Beauty and the Beast, but unlike what happe-
them, a boy from the island of Tenerife who was given the ned in the fairy tale, don Pedro never turned into a handsome
name of Pedro Gonzales. Pedro was descended from a family of prince. From the court of Paris to that of Parma. In 1589, with
local nobles; for this reason, in Europe he was granted the right the Valois decadence and the death of Caterina de ‘medici, the
to bear the title of don. But it was not the title that distingui- Gonzales family was sent to the duchy of Parma, where they
shed the boy, but rather the singular disease from which he was were lodged in Palazzo del Giardino. Ranuccio Farnese, the
afflicted, later classified as hypertrichosis, which wanted him duke, recognized don Pedro’s dignity and rank as a gentle-
entirely covered with hair except for the mouth and the palms man, granted him protection and privileges, on the condition
of the hands. Assimilated to a creature half human and half that he expose himself from time to time to make a fine show of
animal, he was given as a gift to the one who would become his hair. The Gonzales family, though sadly connected to ani-
the king of France, Henry II of Valois, and to his wife Caterina mality, to those uncomfortable hairs had an unusual destiny
de ‘medici. Since at that time the European courts competed made of humiliations but also of ease and privileges. Pedro
among themselves in the collection of exotic animals, that boy Gonzales died around 1618, at the age of about eighty years.
of just ten years represented an element of prestige among wild Catherine followed him in 1623. Their lineage was lost in the
beasts and colorful parrots. It was 1547. After he was crow- meanders of history and nothing is known. All his life, Pedro
ned, Henry II had the little furry educated. In Paris, around detested the curious looks on his person and his family, as well
1573, he married and had several children. The first was Ma- as the nicknames they gave him. He enjoyed ease and privilege,
deleine, followed by Henri, Françoise and Antonietta. All “sa- those who were denied to his overseas countrymen, but what
vages”. At the duchy of Parma, where the Gonzales family he really aspired to was dignity. If the story of Pedro and Ca-
moved later, Orazio, also hairy, was born. Once upon a time ... therine was based on true love, we cannot know it. Whatever it
Beauty. don Pedro’s wife was named Catherine, an attracti- was, it inspired one of the most beautiful and best-known fairy
ve girl of modest origins, in the service of the queen. Eighteen tales in the world, diffused in different versions converging
had her, about thirty-seven the new husband. For Caterina in a common happy ending: the union of two hearts, those of
de ‘medici, who used to combine weddings, it was not easy Beauty and the Beast.

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