It’s a tale as old as time but the real life Beauty and the Beast, Catherine and Petrus Gonsalvus, lived tragic lives, treated like freaks of nature by European royalty.
The tale of Petrus and Catherine Gonsalvus have much deeper folkloric roots than the beloved fairy tale, but it matches those of the fictional couple.
This one’s a page turner.
The real-life story did not have a fairy tale ending
In the Disney version, Belle is an intelligent, strong-willed woman who goes to rescue her father and ends up falling for a man cursed to look like a beast.
But in spite of the curse, the Beast has a soft interior, including a fierce devotion to Belle.
The singing with the dishes, twirling through candlelit ballrooms, and fun snowball fights have the couple falling in love in the end.
It’s a fairy tale ending as their love breaks the curse, and the two live happily ever after.
But the real-life couple did not get a fairy tale ending. There was no curse to break either as the “beast” had to live with his condition for his whole life.
The real beast was caged and shipped off as a present to the king
The real Beast was a man named Petrus Gonsalvus who was born in 1537 in the Canary Islands.
He had a hereditary condition that made him hairy. Petrus was dismissed as a “wild man”, and wasn’t treated with dignity as a result.
Stories of wild men flourished for centuries.
People saw them more as animal rather than human, barbarians that lived on the edges of civilization.
So everyone assumed that young Petrus was not fully human due to his condition.
When he was just 10, Petrus Gonsalvus was locked in an iron cage, given raw meat and animal feed as his sustenance.
In 1547, he was shipped to France as a gift for King Henry II of France during his coronation.
At the French Court, Petrus was locked in a dungeon and treated as a savage
Petrus was locked in a dungeon for observation when he arrived in France.
The court’s doctors and academics poked and prodded him, concluding that Petrus was not a wild man but a 10-year-old boy with soft, thick hair growing on his face and body.
Petrus even said his name, which the French changed from Pedro Gonzales to Petrus Gonsalvus.
King Henry then declared that the boy should receive an education since the King still saw him as a savage incapable of learning.
Henry did not expect Petrus to succeed, but the boy soon shocked them by becoming fluent in Latin and showing noble etiquette.
Disproving the stereotypes about “beasts,” Petrus eventually became an important court guest.
Petrus was treated as a human pet at France’s Royal Court
Petrus proved to be an even greater curiosity as he became an important figure in King Henry’s court.
He was even allowed to dress like a nobleman and eat cooked food, as the king reportedly took a liking to him. It was considered a great honor in the 16th century.
But even though he received improved treatment, Petrus was still seen as less than human, a freak of nature meant to dazzle visitors.
Like dwarfs at the time kept at royal courts for entertainment, Petrus was also treated like a human pet.
Artist Agostino Carracci painted a portrait of three members of King Henry’s court, showing Petrus naked, wearing small fur, a symbol of his status as a wild man.
This portrait was titled Hairy Harry, Mad Peter and Tiny Amon.
A rare disorder caused Hypertrichosis, or excessive hair growth
Petrus was the first-recorded person to suffer from this condition called hypertrichosis.
It causes excessive hair growth on the body. The condition is extremely rare, with only 50 known cases in history.
Dermatologist Sarah K. Taylor reports that “Since the Middle Ages, approximately 50 individuals with congenital hypertrichosis have been described, and, according to the most recent estimates, approximately 34 cases are documented adequately and definitively in the literature.”
The French court didn’t care, only wanting to marvel at the “savage” who dressed like a nobleman.
Queen Catherine de’ Medici thought it was hilarious to marry him off to a beautiful woman
When King Henry passed away, his wife Catherine de’ Medici became queen regent of France.
She had quite a reputation for devious actions, like inviting her religious rivals to Paris for an arranged marriage then ordering thousands of people to be killed in the streets.
Queen Catherine arranged a marriage for Petrus, but did not to tell his future bride about his hairy condition.
Queen Catherine found her “Beauty” in a young maiden named Catherine.
The daughter of a royal court servant, the Queen couldn’t wait to see the children her Beauty might produce with Petrus.
Would they be covered in hair too?
The Queen wanted to manufacture her own royal pets with the arranged marriage she was planning.
Beauty met Petrus on their wedding day and was shocked
The Queen announced to the maiden Catherine that she would soon wed, and there was no way to reject the Queen’s arranged marriage.
Royalty were often married without their consent, so kings and queens could do the same with their court followers.
But Queen Catherine had a surprise for her Beauty in that her husband was covered in hair.
Catherine’s reaction to Petrus’ appearance was not recorded, but it was said that she was initially unhappy.
Seeing a wild man must have been quite a shock for the young maiden but over time, Catherine came to care for Petrus, and the two were married for 40 years.
They had 7 children, with 4 covered in hair
Catherine and Petrus had two children at first, with neither having their father’s condition.
Queen Catherine was surely disappointed but the next two children were covered in hair, proving to Europe’s nobility that beauty did not always conquer beasts.
Catherine and Petrus had seven children, with four born with their father’s condition.
Europe’s royal courts went wild for the Gonsalvus family, so the family toured around Europe only for nobles to gawk at them.
The Gonsalvus family was passed around Royal families
Catherine, Petrus, and their children entertained Europe’s royalty as they toured. Europeans marveled at the “wild family,” while naturalists studied the children.
The Gonsalvus family had their portraits painted in the 1580s at a number of courts.
In those paintings, the children were always shown in noble dress, meant to highlight the gap between their “savage” looks and civilized status.
In the 1590s, the famous naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi examined Petrus and Catherine’s eight-year-old daughter then commissioned a drawing of the family.
Multiple authors published their descriptions, speaking as if the children were not human.
The “Wild Children” were given as pets to other royal families
The Gonsalvus family soon settled in Parma, Italy, where Duke Ranuccio Farnese employed them.
But they were still treated like property so there was no way they could lead a normal life.
Their condition was exploited by aristocrats. People who just wanted to gawk at their freaks of nature.
The Duke sadly sent away the four hairy children as gifts to his noble friends. They were merely seen as pets instead of people.
There were no paintings of the children born without Petrus’s condition. They were not curiosities and therefore were unworthy of being recorded.
Were Catherine and Petrus truly in love?
This portrait of Catherine and Petrus gives us a hint at the mystery of their relationship.
They were married for 40 years, having seven children in the process, but were they truly in love?
The marriage was arranged as a joke, while their children were given away to act as court pets.
It’s a bleak story so it’s hard to imagine how this became the basis of the fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast.
But what about Catherine and Petrus? Does her hand on his shoulder indicate warmth between them?
Or does her steady, far-off look hint at something more tragic?
Catherine and Petrus did not live happily ever after
Petrus and Catherine were trapped in Europe’s royal courts, living with aristocrats while wearing beautiful clothes, but they had no control over their lives.
In his biography of Petrus, Robert Zapperi describes them as “neither captured nor free”, the same fate that befell their children.
The fairy tale version ends with Beauty and the Beast happily married, but no one knows what really happened to Catherine and Petrus.
After being sent from one court to another, the couple settled in the small village of Capodimonte in Italy.
According to the town’s registrar of death, Catherine died in 1623, but there is no record for Petrus’s death.
Maybe because only people who received last rites were recorded.
Petrus was possibly not considered human enough to receive last rights, so even in death, he was still seen as a curiosity and not a man.
Perhaps this is why Disney modified this tragic but true story of Beauty and the Beast.
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