Historical Biology

An International Journal of Paleobiology

ISSN: 0891-2963 (Print) 1029-2381 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ghbi20

The skeletons of Cyclops and Lestrigons:

misinterpretation of Quaternary vertebrates as
remains of the mythological giants

Marco Romano & Marco Avanzini

To cite this article: Marco Romano & Marco Avanzini (2017): The skeletons of Cyclops and
Lestrigons: misinterpretation of Quaternary vertebrates as remains of the mythological giants,
Historical Biology

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2017.1342640

Published online: 26 Jun 2017.

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Download by: [Museum fuer Naturkunde] Date: 26 June 2017, At: 04:43
Historical Biology, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2017.1342640

The skeletons of Cyclops and Lestrigons: misinterpretation of Quaternary vertebrates

as remains of the mythological giants
Marco Romanoa,b and Marco Avanzinic
a
Museum für Naturkunde, leibniz-institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung, Berlin, germany; bDipartimento di scienze della terra, “sapienza”
Universita` di roma, rome, italy; csezione di geologia, MUsE - Museo delle scienze, trento, italia

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The myth of giants as irst inhabitants of countries is a common legend shared by diferent cultures. In this received 8 February 2017
paper, we highlight that one of the determining factors of the origination of the myth was the discovery of accepted 12 June 2017
large vertebrate bones (largely Cenozoic), initially interpreted as the remains of giant humans. Thus, huge
KEYWORDS
skeletons were interpreted by authoritative writers such as Strabo, Philostratus and Pliny (just to name giants; Quaternary; cyclops;
a few) as the bodies of the mythological giant Antaeus, Ilio son of Hercules, Orestes, Cyclops and many og; Hercules; Pliny
others. As for the myth of the Great Flood, also the hypothesis of the giants found a convenient literal
conirmation in the Sacred Scriptures. One of the irst correct interpretations takes place in the irst half
of the eighteenth century with the studies of Hans Sloane which applied some rudiments of comparative
anatomy to prove that the bones belonged to large cetaceans or terrestrial quadrupeds. In the Italian
panorama, until the eighteenth century, several authors were convinced of the past existence of entire
nations of giants, which represented the irst populations of Mediterranean islands. Sloane’s work had a
great impact also in Italy, although some ‘sacs of resistance’ persisted up to mid-nineteenth century.

Introduction of giants, derived from the incorrect interpretation of this oste-

ological material, has deep roots in many cultures around the
Among the diferent natural productions, fossils represented
world. We ind direct reference in the works of Pliny who speaks
since ancient times mysterious and wonderful objects, able to
of bones of the giant Orion found on the island of Crete ater
attract human attention as early as the third millennium BC.
‘that a mountain was brokened and opened’ (Mazzella 1591; de
First written evidence of a direct interest in lithiied remains of
Torquemada 1612; Calmet 1730), Herodotus which mentions the
plants and animals are found already in text fragments by hales
large bones of the giant Orestes recovered in Acadia and those of
(636–546 a.C.), Anaximander (615–547 a.C.), Xanthus of Sardi
Pallas in Rome (Mazzella 1591). Strabo narrates of large bones
(500 a.C) Herodotus (484–425 a.C.) up to Eudoxus of Cnidus
found near Campi Flegrei (Mazzella 1591), referred to ‘those
(circa 366 a.C.; see Morello 2003; Romano 2013, 2014).
great giants struck by Jupiter’ in the famous battle of mythology.
Besides the use in alchemy and medicine, fossils were sources
Antonio Sabellico in his Aeneid reports the gigantic body of
of inspiration worldwide for myths and legends, some even
Antheo found in the city of Tigena, with a length for the mighty
crystallized into immortal classic works of antiquity. Legends
skeleton of sixty cubits (de Torquemada 1612). In the Book of
of dwarfs and giants narrated in ancient Greece and Asia Minor
the City of God, Saint Augustine refers to a gigantic ‘human’
most likely have a direct link to the discovery of large vertebrate
molar, which he estimated equivalent to at least one hundred
fossils: ultimately they represent a irst attempt at an explanation
molars of ordinary person (de Torquemada 1612; Antonini 1717;
for these unusual indings. hus ‘griins’, the giants killed by Zeus
Calino 1720; Calmet 1730). Philostratus, speaking of Vesuvius
during the rebel climbing of Mount Olympus, and even the skel-
and Pozzuoli, reports that the Neapolitans boasted of owning the
eton of Achilles, Ajax, and Cyclops Polyphemus (Figure 1), may
real bones of giants struck by Jupiter, including those of giant
have a completely paleontological origin, as already suggested
Alcyoneus (Capaccio 1634). Giovanni Boccaccio narrates of the
by Adrienne Mayor (2000) in her essay he irst fossil hunters.
mighty skeleton of the giant Erice (see Madrisio 1718), found in
Paleontology in Greek and Roman times.
Trapani countryside in 1342; even Virgil in his Georgics speaks
In the Italian territory, the discovery of huge fossil bones
of gigantic bones (Madrisio 1718). he Emperor Augustus was
within sediment, oten brought to light by river erosion in
one of the irst to organize a cabinet or gallery in his palace of
Pleistocene deposits or inside karst cavities, has always stim-
Capri in which artistic, archaeological objects, and several nat-
ulated the imagination of naturalists and local people, giving
ural products and oddities from all over the empire were shown.
rise to legends, myths, or pseudo-scientiic theories. he myth

CONTACT Marco romano marco.romano@mfn-berlin.de

© 2017 informa UK limited, trading as taylor & Francis group
2 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI
Figure 1. ‘L’accecamento di polifemo’ (‘The blinding of Polyphemus’).
Note: Pellegrino tibaldi, 1550, Bologna Palazzo Poggi.
Figure 2. gustave Doré’s illustrations to Dante’s Divine comedy.
Note: giants and titans in chains, with Ephialtes on the left.
Among these -in addition to large weapons and armor of heroes
of the past- some immense ‘bone of Giants’ were also exposed
(Targioni Tozzetti 1752; Bartoli 1837).
Giants ‘borrowed’ from the classical iconography also appear in
the monumental work by Dante Alighieri, he Divine Commedy;
in Canto XXXI of the Inferno, Dante and Virgilio encounter
the mighty igure of the giant Ephialtes, the Titan who led the
famous rebel climbing against Jupiter (Figure 2). In his work
‘Monstruom Historia cum paralipomenis historiae omnium ani-
malium’ (Bologna 1642), the famous Bolognese naturalist Ulisse
Aldrovandi classiied horse teeth as Dentes Gigantes (Figure 3).
In the present text, a general introduction on the worldwide
myth of giants is provided, with the attention focused particu-
larly on the Italian scene with a time interval ranging from the
sixteenth to the nineteenth century, when the great work of
Cuvier and other anatomists allowed to permanently set aside
the hypothesis of the giants and to correctly interpret the dis-
covered bones and their embedding deposits.
The ancient myth of giants: a common element in
almost all cosmogonies
As for the novel of the Great Flood, the general and catastrophic
looding that in the traditions of many cultures covered the whole
Figure 3. Horse teeth attributed to giants by Ulisse aldrovandi in his ‘Monstrorum
Historia’ of 1642.
Earth, bringing death and destruction, also the legend of giant
men or real nation of giants seems to be a common myth in
almost all classical cosmologies of various countries. Giant is a
term derived from Greek mythology. In many cultures of the
ancient Mediterranean, giants are connected to the origin of the
cosmos and represent the primordial chaos which contrasts with
the rationality of the Gods. he oldest mythical tale concerning
them is considered to be the Hesiod’s heogony (eighth century
BC) in which the origin and nature of divine descent is explained.
Hesiod probably resumes previous mythological models common
in the Near East and Egypt. According to Hesiod, the giants were
the sons of the earth (Gea) fertilized by the blood of the cas-
trated Uranus (Heaven). he most famous giants Agrius (wild),
Enceladus (bombastic), Porphyry (laming), already starting
from their names, recall the terrifyng elements of nature. Despite
being mortals, the blind trust in their strength and size led them
to challenge the gods that were defeated at the end of a terrible
ight. heir huge bodies, burned and still smoldering, were trapped
under high mountains giving rise to the volcanoes. A irst inter-
esting consideration follows: the giants are no longer visible, their
remains are trapped in the earth and in rocks beneath the moun-
tains where they still can manifest their former power.
he ight between gods and giants, known as Gigantomachy,
is one of the most frequent topics of Greek-Roman art (Figure

Figure 4. gigantomachy from the altar of Pergamon (greek Hellenistic period, c.
175–150 BcE).
4). he iconography represents them as armed, vigorous and
wild warriors, covered with skins, or as monstrous, sometimes
winged beings.
Another cosmogony in which the giants are protagonists is
the Germanic-Norse one. Cantù (1838) reports that in the cos-
mogony of the Scandinavians at the beginning of time the Earth
was imagined as an abyss without herbs and seeds, the stars had
no ‘seat’ and the sun had not yet his usual lare. he giant Ymo
born from the vapors and fumes of the abyss. Once killed by
Bono’s sons, blood gushed from the giant and the water and the
sea were formed, from the bones the mountains, from the teeth
the stones, from the skull the heavens, and his brains scattered
in the air give rise to the clouds.
In the cosmogony of the Jews, the Earth was inhabited for a
long time by angels and giants; then Adam was created in twelve
hours, so big and scary that God was forced to shrink him to a
hundred cubits to reassure the frightened angels (Cantù 1838).
According to the peoples of Mexico, four suns were present
before the current one, which were shut down one ater another.
Every single sun indicates a particular age of the world. During
the First Age, called ‘age of the earth’, according to the tradition
some nations of giants lived, who destroyed each other, with
evidence represented by the bones ‘of extraordinary size’ found
all around the country (Cantù 1838).
In the cosmogony of the Moluccas and Celibi, the sky, the sun,
and the moon are considered eternal and without origin. One
day on the surface of the moon, who ‘runs away chased by the
sun’, a wound formed from which the earth was brought forth,
falling into the place that it still occupies nowadays. he Earth
HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 3
in the fall opened in several places and two species of giants
came out from generated issures: the irst became masters of the
sea, ruling on ish, the second -penetrated in the center of the
planet- started to work on the production of metals; every time
they shook in the underground, they shake the Earth giving rise
to earthquakes (Cantù 1838).
In Peru, Brazil, and Mexico, the giants are an integral part
of the folk tradition. According to the legends, giants inhabited
these lands in the beginning, but were violently exterminated by
God with ire, to punish ‘their wickedness, and especially for the
infamies that committed against nature’ (Calmet 1730).
Torrubia (1760) reports that in the traditions of the ‘Americans’
the history of the world is divided into four periods or eras. he
irst call ‘Atonatiub’ represents the period from the Creation to
the arrival of the big rain and the Great Flood; ‘Tlachitonatiuh’,
or the second period, ranges from the Great Flood to the destruc-
tion of the giants with strong earthquakes; the third epoch or
‘Ecatonatiuh’ goes from the destruction of the giants and earth-
quakes, to the arrival of ‘Great Swirling Wind’; the fourth age
or ‘Tletonatiub’ ranges from the swirling wind to the end of the
World, destroyed by ire.
In the history of the Second Dynasty of Japan, ‘preserved in
the archives of the priests of the Camis religion’, the narratives are
found of the amazing adventures of demigod heroes (Corrazzini
1874). In these stories, we ind dragons and giants who bring
death and destruction in the country, plunging the people into
a deep and desperate terror. As evidence of these mythological
tales, diferent cities and small towns took names that recall pre-
cisely these legendary heroic actions against dragons and giants.
he giants are mentioned at length also in the Bible. ‘When
the sons of God mated to the daughters of men and they bore
sons, on the land there were also giants’: this is perhaps the most
famous Biblical passage about this topic (Genesis 6.3), introduc-
ing the story of Noah. hese giants are a race with otherworldly
characteristics, halfway between men and gods, and deined in
the apocryphal sources as ‘nephilion’– whose translation is not
unique but commonly interpreted as ‘the fallen’.
When Moses sends explorers to Hebron: ‘And there we saw
people of high stature, among which the giants descendants of
Anak. In front of them we looked like ants’ (Numbers 13, 32–33).
hey are the Amorites, (Genesis 10:15–16) which, according to
Amos (Amos 2:9–10), were tall and strong by the will of God. A
reference to an ethnic group is found in Deuteronomy: ‘Here at
the beginning lived the Emim: strong, numerous and tall people,
as the Anakim. hey were also regarded as Rephaim like the
Anakim’ (Deuteronomy 2, 10–11). Modern translations of the
Bible do not provide any detail of their size. We must refer to the
Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament also used by
St. Augustine. In this text, the word Emim is translated as Gigas
(giants) and Titanes (Titans which were the allies of the giants
in the Greek Gigantomachy).
Rephaim is another race of giants (Genesis 14, 5 and
Deuteronomy II, 10). King Og was the last survivor of this race:
‘Og, king of Bashan, remained the only survivor of the Rephaim.
Here is his bed, an iron bed … … It is nine cubits long accord-
ing to the cube of a man’ (Deuteronomy III, 11). He will be one
the vanquished kings, whose territory will be occupied by the
sons of Israel (Giosuè XII, 4). In Number XXI, 33 the giant
Og is mentioned again, defeated by Moses and by the people
4 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI

of Israel in the battle of Edraï. he rabbinic literature (see the

Jewish Encyclopedia), reports that Og was a true giant –the only
survivor of the Great Flood (Babylonian Talmud, adapted from
Niddah p. 61 sheet ‘a’). Judaism, more precisely, the Talmud and
the Torah, converges with Genesis on the origin of the giants and
suggest in what way Og is related to the early giants. According
to the Talmud and Torah, the giants are represented by Si’hon
and Og: two brothers, sons of A’hia, whose father, Cham’hazaï,
was a ‘fallen Angel’ (Nidda 61a), and the mother was the woman
of ‘Ham’ (Yalqout reouvéni sur Berèchith 7, 7). Og was born
before the Flood and is saved by Noah on the promise that he
and his descendants would forever remain his slaves (Pirkei
de-rabbi Eliézèr 23). Going back to the Bible, the Anakim and
the Rephaim descended from the same race of giants, whose
survivors could mix with the last race of giants described in the
sacred text: the Philistines to which belonged Goliath, the most
famous biblical giant (Samuel I 17, 4–7). Goliath was not the
only one among the Philistines to own a giant stature: ‘here
was another battle at Gath, where a man of great stature was
found, that had six ingers both in hand and foot, on the whole
twenty-four ingers: also he was born in Rafa’ (II Samuel XXI,
20). he same passage is reported in Chronicles I, XX, 6.
Considering that the drating of the biblical books is diicult
to frame in a historical perspective, it is not possible to under-
stand what the relations are between Greek and Jewish mythol-
ogy. However, it must be stressed that the continued presence of
these topics in the Mediterranean myths would assume a wide
dissemination of these legendary tales based on the partial verac-
ity of the narratives. Figure 5. the Karabin giant presents itself to King arthur.
Note: garello cycle of frescoes of castel runkelstein Bolzano fourteenth century.
Deinitely more symbolic is the presence of the giants in the
medieval imagination: we ind them as protagonists of frescos,
tapestries, miniatures and many literary genres such as the epic
and the courtly romance. In medieval literature, the giant is the their strength and greatness, occupied several cities cultivating
monstrous outcast who threatens society, or the faithful servant unbridled libido and lust (Mazzella 1591). hese gigantic beings
who helps the nobles in battle (Figure 5). he giants are always mated with their mothers, daughters, sisters, and men, invented
ideal igures and their description oten moves from normal several musical instruments, and ate human lesh. At their feet
physical characteristics to a complex symbolic world. hey rep- were snakes and dragons; they did not care about sacred or divine
resent mostly the alter ego of the knight, playing a crucial role in matters, but only about ‘terrestrial and perishable’ things.
the deinition of his value. It represents a topic with deep roots, In the inventory of the Ambras collections (Innsbruck)
relected in the Celtic texts and ‘Historia Regnum Britanniae’ drated in 1603, in addition to crocodiles, elephant tusks, rhi-
(1136/1137) by Geofrey of Monmouth; works that inluenced noceros horns, ish, and snakeskins, ‘a giant tibia’ is reported.
decisively the Arthurian cycle and the courtly romance. Siforiano Capeggio claims to have directly observed bones of
‘Giants’ were called to serve in the courts and then (ater giants in the city of Valencia, preserved in a monastery of the
death) became part of the collections of naturalia or of cabi- Friars Minor (de Torquemada 1612). According to the author,
nets of curiosities (wunderkammer). In such theatrum mundi once geometrically reconstructed, the complete skeleton had to
the giants represented a peculiarity, precisely because of their be greater than forty feet. Accroding to de Torquemada (1612)
huge size did falter the idea of ‘normal world’. In the cabinets Giovanni Pio Bolognese mentioned that on the coast of the city
of arts and curiosities, objects related to the giants were placed of Utica (or Carthage), he observed a human molar equivalent
side by side to rare large animals, gigantic bones or drawings. In to 100 molars of common men, and therefore the size and height
the huge Cabinet of Count Johachim Enzmilner (died in 1678) had to be proportional. St. Augustine directly refers to the same
‘several bone of giants’ are found, places next to the chair built in tooth in the book of the City of God.
1554 with parts of the elephant Suleiman (an elephant donated In 1612, the Spanish author Antonio de Torquemada pub-
to the Emperor of Austria, which had traveled through Europe lished the work ‘Garden of Curious Flowers’. he text is struc-
from Portugal to Vienna). tured in a series of dialogues divided into six treaties, where
the most diverse subjects of human knowledge (e.g. cosmogra-
phy, theology, geography, philosophy) are discussed. In the irst
The myth of the giants outside Italy treaty, the interlocutors Luigi, Antonio, and Bernardo discuss,
According to the writings of Berosus of Babylon, in Lebanon was among the many issues, giants. Bernardo claims that much of
a big city called Enos inhabited by giants. Huge men that, for the information about giants must be regarded as fabulous, since
 HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 5

the maximum size that can be reached is seven feet in height,

i.e. the stature of Hercules. He then speaks about two men at the
time of Augustus Caesar, named Pusione and Secondila, both ten
feet tall, with their huge bones now preserved in the cemetery
of Salustiani. Similarly, in the time of Emperor Claudius a giant
named Gavazza was led from Arabia, nine feet and nine inches
in height. Antonio, in response, reports that Solino speaks about
the bones of Orestes found in Tegea, seven cubits in length (i.e.
a height of about 3.5 m). He also reports that the erosion caused
by rivers has brought to light a monumental human body in
Candia, thirty cubits long. According to the interlocutor, Lucius
Flaccus Legato and Metellus visiting the site to see the skeleton
in person, ‘enjoying with their own eyes what, before, they could
not believe’. He also reports the Orion body (according to oth-
ers the body of Ocio) found in Candia and described by Pliny
(forty cubits in height), the body of Antheo reported by Antonio
Sabellico in his Aeneid (found in the city of Tigena) and the giant
skull of a man found on the island of Candia, recovered during
the excavation of a tree and its roots. However, the head once
touched immediately turned to ashes leaving just some teeth
preserved (most likely of large quadrupeds, possibly elephants)
that were brought to Venice. his narrative element of the body
suddenly turned to ashes (leaving just some teeth) is, as we shall
see, common to several legends or anecdotal fables about giant
bones and skeletons. In fact, Antonio (the second interlocutor
described in de Torquemada 1612) reports that according to
Giacomo Filippo da Bergamo, a gigantic body was found in a
tomb, which, however, once touched disappeared in dust and
ashes. In some letters accompanying the body we read: ‘Pallas,
son of Evander, which killed Turno’. Luigi, the third interlocutor
(de Torquemada 1612), quotes Giovanni Boccaccio about the
gigantic body found by some workers near the city of Trapani in
Sicily discovered inside a large cave (the body of the giant Erice,
see above). he skeleton, according to Boccaccio, was at least
Figure 6. st. christopher. tiziano, 1523, Palazzo Ducale, Venezia.
two hundred cubits in length, ‘something that would be consid-
ered impossible and incredible, if such grave authors would not
give testimony of it’. he interlocutor Antonio then refers to the drinking water, sea lions, ‘beasts resembling deer but with longer
gigantic dimensions of St. Christopher as found in the Sacred necks and legs (guanacos) on the mountains,’ ostrich-like birds,
Scripture (Figure 6), of which some relics are preserved in the stone post ‘that, seen from a distance, resembles a man’s foot’, and
church of Atorga, composed of a large molar ‘as big as a closed the position ‘Where they found the burial site of a giant, whose
ist of a man’, and a ‘Tusk’. Luigi then reports a theory found bones measured between ten and eleven feet long.’
later by diferent authors, according to which the human race is In Antwerp is still possible to see the remains of the
gradually decreasing in strength and size from the early days of Triform Fortress, were ‘the wicked giant Antigonus reigned
‘creation’. his may explain the presence of numerous bodies of bloodthirsty’, terror of the country and all over Belgium
giants in the ‘ancient sediments’ compared to very few people (Madrisio 1718): enormous and immeasurable giant, as shown
really taller than normal observable nowadays. by the huge bones still preserved and displayed to the curi-
In 1614 the physician and scientist Wilhelm Schmid, born in ous. According to legend, the wicked giant claimed tribute
Hilden in Westphalia and better known as Guilhelmus Fabricius to the ships that passed the Scheldt, cutting off the hands of
Hildanus (1560–1634), saw in the ‘Tavern of giants’ (town of anyone who refused to pay. In the local language, the name
Oppenheim, on the Rhine), a huge femur recovered long ago of the city ‘Antwerpen’ means precisely ‘hands’ (‘Hant’) and
from the Rhine river. Intrigued by this inding, he commissioned to ‘throw away’ (‘Werpen’). Common people considered the
a painting of the bone in 1626 (the painting is now preserved story as a sure and sacred thing (Madrisio 1718) to the point
in Bernische Historischern museum (inv. 41365) and depicts a that during solemn popular events, as the Feasts of the Holy
mammoth femur). Trinity or of the Blessed Virgin, a giant of prodigious stat-
he Dutch navigator Willem Cornelisz Schouten claims he ure was carried in procession, followed by persons depicted
had seen skeletons of at least 3.5 m. Figure 7 shown an illustra- with cut hands and with the effigy of the triangular fortress.
tion from a 1615 AD expedition to the Port Desire aka Puerto However, in addition to popular belief, there would be some
Deseado in Patagonia in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina. serious evidence to support the story (Madrisio 1718). First of
he illustration claims to depict birds and sea lions, ship repairs, all, a news report in the credited Trudonese Chronicle about
6 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI
Figure 7. the relation of a Wonderfull Voiage made by Willem cornelison schouten
of Horne.
Notes: shewing how south from the straights of Magelan in terra Delfuego: he found and
discovered a newe passage through the great south seaes, and that way sayled round about
the world. london: imprinted by t.D. for Nathanaell Newbery. 1619. the illustration claims to
depict c, D: birds and sea lions, E, F: ship repairs, g: drinking water, i, K: sea lions, l: ‘beasts
resembling deer but with longer necks and legs (guanacos) on the mountains,’ M: ostrich-like
birds, N: stone post ‘that, seen from a distance, resembles a man’s foot’ and the key point for
our purposes, H: ‘Where they found the burial site of a giant, whose bones measured between
ten and eleven feet long.’
an urn found underground in a village near Antwerp, filled
with skeletal hands cut off by the giant. In addition, in the
public palace of Antwerp are preserved, and displayed to the
curious visiting from other countries, several bones of gigantic
proportions ascribed to the giant Antigonus. Among these
bones, Madrisio reports those of the thigh (femur), shoul-
der, arm, and a tooth. However, Goropio believes that these
bones of Antwerp should be referred to ‘some old Elephant’, as
for many other cases across Europe. The same interpretation
(correct in the light of current knowledge) is supported by
the erudite Peireschio for the 25-foot tall skeleton found in
the tomb of Teudorico, King of the Teutons in the Dauphiné,
and by Ernesto Tenzelio for bones discovered in ‘sandy hill of
Thuringia’ in 1695 (Madrisio 1718).
Phlegon in his ‘de rebus mirabilis’ talks about a big storm in
the Peloponnese which brought to light a tombstone with a head
three times the size of a modern man (Mazzarella Farao 1717),
and a Greek inscription which bore the name of the famous
giant Ideo (according to Homer killed by Apolline in a duel).
Phlegon also reports that in Dalmatia ‘prodigious bones’ could
be seen inside the ‘cave of Diana’, of prodigious size. And even
Egypt, according to the author, had its giants such as Ethiopia,
Arabia, and Palestine. He reports, in fact, that at Litres, in Egypt,
gigantic bodies are found with bones not buried in the ground,
but disposed on the open surface (reported even in Calmet 1730).
In the narrative by Pliny about a 46 cubits long body found in
a mountain of Crete, immediately attributed to Oto, the famous
giant brother of Ephialtes (Mazzarella Farao 1717). Similarly,
Solino reports of a giant of 33 cubits found in Crete observed
directly from L. Flacco and Metellus, (reported also by Calmet
1730). In Syria, following the diversion of the Orontes river on
the orders of the Emperor, an 11 cubits tall giant was found in the
strata called both Orontes both Ariade (Mazzarella Farao 1717;
reported even in Calmet 1730). Mazzarella Farao (1717) reports
the story by Glica that in Constantinople, under the Emperor
Anastasius, numerous bone of giants were found; the Emperor
gave the order to collect the bones and brought the material to
his palace, where he cared a sort of ‘Museum for the memory of
posterity’ (see also Calmet 1730). In Bohemia in 735 a so large
human head was discovered ‘that two men could not carry it’,
together with some legs 26 feet in length (Mazzarella Farao 1717;
reported even in Calmet 1730). In the sacred Chapel of Bourges
the femur (‘thigh bone’) of a giant is preserved, the same size
of that characterizing Teutoboco (Mazzarella Farao 1717; see
also Calmet 1730). he historic Ettore Boezio reports that in
the cabinet of the King of Sweden is preserved a human thigh
bone found in 1643 in Bruges (Flanders) weighing 25 pounds,
currently preserved by Otto Sperling and his heirs (Mazzarella
Farao 1717; see also Calmet 1730).
In his work of 1730 ‘he Treasure of the sacred and profane
antiquities’, Augustin Calmet reports a long dissertation on
giants. he author aims to conirm the existence of huge men
and refute those who bring counter-arguments to the debate.
With the word giant, Calmet emphasizes that he does not mean
the sporadic men of greater size observed rarely even today, but
those titans who were ‘two, or three, or four times bigger than
us’. So he wants to demonstrate that in ancient times, especially
before the Great Flood, humans were generally much bigger, with
the existence of real races and generations of giants. Ater hav-
ing literally quoted passages from the Bible and opinions about
Origen, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and the
Stoics, he reports that, according to some naturalists, the famous
battle of the giants against Jupiter has actually a natural origin. In
particular, the launch of stones and lashes of ire are due to the
fast leaking of underground winds. his hypothesis was linked
to the ancient theory that earthquakes, and several volcanic phe-
nomena, were due to the action of underground winds, as we
ind also in Dante’s Inferno (see Romano 2016a). According to
the legend, continues the author, Jupiter defeated the giants and
imprisoned them under the Etna and Vesuvius mountains; when
the giants try to get up from the underground to ind revenge,
they generate earthquakes and eruptions that are very common
in those areas. he scholars mentioned above, however, consider
these phenomena as entirely natural and caused by underground
winds, without resorting to Jupiter and the giants.
Calmet (1730) opposes the theory that with the passage of
time the human generations are characterized by a gradual
decrease in size, with bodies more and more small and weak;
in fact in the last 3000 years the average human stature has
remained mostly unchanged, showing no kind of trend towards
smaller sizes (contrary to the beliefs of Pliny and Lucretius).
In support of the giants he quotes the sacred scriptures -espe-
cially the tale of Moses- and the extraordinary dimensions of
Adam, the irst human. Based on various sources, including
the Rabbis, Calmet is convinced that the men before the lood
were of a much larger overall size. Against those who oppose
 HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 7

the existence of the giants, the author reports the evidence of

many huge bones discovered in the past and still found now-
adays. However, says Calmet (1730), many authors have made
mockery of these bones referring the material to skeletons of
whales and elephants, or believing them as generated directly in
the ground as in the case of Athanasius Kircher (deined as ‘one
of the most vigorous opponent to the Giants Party’). Regarding
the bones, he quotes those found in Hebron and reported by
Josephus, the resurrection of the bodies studied by Tertullian,
and the bones found during excavations in Carthage. He men-
tions the famous tooth at Utica from Saint Augustin, and the
giant tooth attributed to St. Christopher and preserved in the
Church of Vercelli, as reported by Agostino Tornielo. he other
‘evidence’ of giant bones reported by the author are broadly those
already found in Mazzarella Farao (1717) and in some passages
the text is mostly identical. In the inal part of the dissertation,
Calmet (1730) summarizes in diferent points the evidence that
would make certain the existence of giants in the past, not as sin-
gle monstrous and deformed individuals, but as real populations
of huge humans. Calmet considers the texts of Holy Scripture
about giants as absolute truths and emphasizes how they are very
diferent from inventions and separation of poets like Homer and
Virgil. hen he claims that special conditions in some areas of the
world (as the temperature and the available nutrients) may have
led to races much bigger in size as is true in other areas where the
conditions (e.g. cold climates) lead to very small average sizes.
Figure 8. sir Hans sloane, by stephen slaughter, oil on canvas, 1736.
he author concludes the work suggesting that more evidence Note: transferred from British Museum, 1879 (© National Portrait gallery, london).
is needed to prove the existence of the giants, i.e. the discovery
of entire giant skeletons:
It could be truth, that some bones of Elephant or whale are shown
as bones of giants; but it is most certain, that in many places real Based on these statements, Sloane admirably succeeds to show
bones of Giants are preserved, and consequently the existence of the how the supposed vertebra of a giant (brought by some curious
Giants is a fact beyond all doubt (Calmet 1730). people from Oxford) is actually of a whale; in the same way he
Hans Sloane (Figure 8) in the Philosophical Transactions shows how the bones of the axial skeleton are so diferent in these
of the Royal Society (translated into Italian in 1734) describes cetaceans and humans, that, for an anatomist, it is mostly impos-
teeth and elephant tusks found in continental deposits in the sible to confuse the one with the other. To whale or elephant
surrounding of London. Sloane reports that the material was skeletons may be referred, according to the author, all the known
extremely altered (he uses the term ‘calcinato’), and fragile and ‘bodies of giants’ mentioned in the literature, simply following
totally comparable to the condition described by Boccaccio for a more careful comparative anatomical analysis. According to
the skeleton found in Sicily. herefore Sloane, as early as the Sloane, in some cases even without seeing the material directly,
irst half of the eighteenth century, correctly recognizes these these bones can be referred without any doubt to fossil elephants,
huge bones as the remains of large quadrupeds; making direct as for the famous tooth from Utica mentioned by St. Augustine,
reference to the material from Sicily, he necessarily falsiies the or the skeleton of ‘Giant’ found near Trapani mentioned by
myth of the famous giant of Erice found in Boccaccio’s narrative Boccaccio in his ‘Genealogy of the Gods’ (referred over time to
(see below). Ater providing an extremely ‘modern’ and detailed Erice, Etello, Cyclops in general and speciically Polyphemus).
anatomical analysis of the various layers forming the tusks in According to the author, the ‘bones of giant’ found in France
elephants (both fossil and in the present ones), Sloane uses much in 1456 (under Charles VII), the very large skull found in 1559
of the text to dismantle the legend of the giants and to prove in the underground of Tunis, the tooth described by Lambecio
that the bones attributed to huge men are nothing but bones of found in Vienna, the huge skeleton found in Sweden during the
large vertebrates (terrestrial quadrupeds or cetaceans). hus, as siege of Krembs City, as well as the tooth of the supposed bib-
reported by the author, the anterior autopod of a whale, once the lical giant Og found ‘in a cave near Jerusalem’, would be easily
sot tissues were removed, ‘was shown publicly a few years ago as referable to elephants. he latter was sent from Constantinople
bones of a hand of Giant’. With an incredible intuition, precur- to Vienna in an attempt to sell it at a high price to the Emperor
sor of the monumental work by Cuvier, the author states that it (which however once realized the scam sent it back). Giovanni
would be extremely useful for scholars who deal with anatomy to Goropio Becano, although living in a period where the giants’
do some sort of comparative anatomy of Bones; I mean to examine
tales had a great inluence on the imagination, audaciously
with greater accuracy … … which skeletons proportions, and parts referred the famous teeth of the Antwerp giant to a molar of
of skeletons of men, and animals have in relation to each other, both elephant and not to the ‘ruthless Giant’ of the legend. Equally
in terms of size, shape, or structure, as in any other characteristic. ‘the erudite Peiresk’, by analyzing the teeth of an actual elephant,
8 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI
demonstrates that the supposed skull of giant from Tunis was
nothing but a jawbone of a pachyderm.
In 1768, the Italian translation from the French work ‘Portable
Dictionary of heology’ by the Abbot D. Prospero dell’Aquila
was published. he question of the giants, reports the author,
has raised the interest of scholars and the curious, and it seems
to be conirmed and supported by the Holy Scriptures, by the
writings of Poets, by ‘profane historians’, and by the discovery of
large skeletons that seem to ‘give a decisive weight to this opinion’
(Prospero dell’Aquila 1768). he author criticizes the excesses
reported by many authors including Plutarch, Solino, Phlegon,
Fazello, Apolonio, Antigonus, Caristio, Philostratus the Younger,
and Pliny, considering absurd the size of 6100 cubits for these
giants of the past (e.g. Orestes, Antaeus, Orion, Cyclops). he
abbot, in fact, points out that in many of these stories a com-
mon element was the disappearance of the supposed giant body
to ashes, leaving no trace or proof for anyone who wanted to
directly check the existence of such immense human beings. his
is a fact that, according to the author, does not necessarily lead
to a loss of credibility of the stories of these ‘profane’ writers and
historians. Regarding the supposed bones of giants represented
by ‘teeth, ribs, vertebrae, femurs, and shoulder bones’, the author
reports how in reality ‘physicists have demonstrated’ that these
bones can be easily referred to elephants, whales, and ‘marine
calves’ buried in diferent places of the Earth. In particular, the
bones of the giant Teudoboco, found in Paris in 1613 and later
brought to Flanders and England, can be referred to elephants.
he big tooth sent in 1630 to M. de Peyrese and believed to be
of a giant was analyzed and compared with that of an elephant
found in Tunis; at the end the bone was indeed referable to the
same type of animal. hen he reports on the information about
the Patagonians of incredible dimensions according to the trave-
lers’ tales. However the Abbot cautions against blindly believing
these accounts, since many of these reports ‘are full of exaggera-
tions, and falsehoods in many other things’ (Prospero dell’Aquila
1768). According to the Abbot, experience teaches us that when
in our day we observe the rare case of man with a size out of the
ordinary (‘that is, men who have seven or eight feet’ in height),
‘they are routinely misdeeds, sick, and unable to common func-
tions’. In support of that claim, he reports the case of the Irish
giant Cornelius Madrast brought to Naples in 1757 and Bernardo
Gigli from Northern Italy. At the end of the text dedicated to
the giants, the author mentions the dialectical debate between
Father Giuseppe Farrubia and the English physician Hans Sloane
(see above), and strongly advised to read the work of the latter
in order to make a clearer and unbiased idea about the matter.
During excavations for a burial pit Cemetery Monastery of
Wreta in Sweden, beneath the normal burials a ‘very long human
skeleton’ was found, embedded within ine sands (Tiburzio
Tiburtius 1776). he skeleton, reports Tiburtius, ‘Had a large
skull with proportionate jaws, and very long were the bones
of the arms, thighs and legs’. he author says that during the
recovery the skull was shattered, but the bones found complete
were retrieved and displayed in the Church ‘to be observed by
curious’. Once assembled together, the leg bones ‘form a length,
which surprises the viewer’ (Tiburtius 1776). he author says that
although it is diicult to ind men of so large size, these human
were not rare in the days of King Inge Stalstansons, which lived
at the Monastery of Crete.
In the same volume, however, the text is followed by a con-
tribution by Rolando Martin (1776) where the author reports
that many of these bones attributed to the giants were in fact the
remains of large animals, ater having considered the material
‘with anatomical eye’. Martin also pointed out that in the past
‘our ancestors’ used to include animal bones in human graves,
and this practice may have generated some confusion referring
these remains to giant men. Martin does not deny that men with
extraordinary size may have existed even in historical times
and uses as evidence the Dutch farmer Cajano, Bernardo Gilli
Trentino, and the German girl shown in Paris in 1755. At the
age of 26 years, the girl was about 2.4 m tall. Martin says that if
these humans so large were observed today, nothing prevents
other cases also in the past and this could be the case for the
huge body described by Tiburtius.
Francisco Javier Clavijero in his ‘Ancient History of Mexico’
of 1780, reports the traditions of the American peoples, with
reference to the skulls, bones, and giant skeletons found in dif-
ferent places of ‘New Spain’ (he cites as localities Atlancatepec,
Tlascalla, Tezcuro, Toluva and Quaubximalpan). hese indings
led locals to believe that the irst inhabitants of these lands were
populations of giants. Although the existence of these gigantic
men was denied by ‘many Philosophers of Europe’, Clavigero
claims to believe in their existence in the past, not only in
America but also in many other parts of the world. he author,
in fact, points out that there is no memory or mention of living
elephants or hippos in the territories of the ‘American Nation’,
therefore considered unlikely the assignment of large bones to
such large quadrupeds. Diferently, according to the author, we
have many testimonies from ‘countless Authors’ of the discovery
of skulls or entire human skeletons of amazing size, with ‘eye-
witnesses’ of the caliber of Dr. Hernandez and P. Ascosta (see
Clavigero 1780). Also, considering that many of these bones are
found in clearly anthropic tombs, Clavigero questions why hip-
pos and elephants would be buried in sarcophaguses, as if they
were human beings. According to the author, all such evidence
should be seriously taken into consideration before stating cat-
egorically that all the bones found in America are to be referred
to large quadrupeds of the past.
he myth of the giants is a common element in Aztec and
Peruvian mythology (Pagnozzi 1823), with the era of the giant
that is, according to the traditions of these peoples, the irst
period in the history of the world. he origin and spreading of
the myth has been extensively contributed to the ‘huge skele-
tons of fossil animals’ found in several areas of South America
(Pagnozzi 1823). he big remains of ‘cetaceans’ found on the tip
Saint Helen (above Guayaquil) were interpreted by Peruvians as
the remains of nation of giants, as well as ‘the bones of mastodons
and elephants’ found in the ‘New Granata’ (current Colombia),
and in Mexico in the Andes; not surprisingly, in fact, the plateau
that extends from Soacha to Santafè brings precisely the name
of ‘Field of Giants’. In addition, in their traditions the Olmecs
narrate that the giants’ battles occurred on the Tlascala plateau,
most likely ater inding ‘molar teeth of mastodons and elephants’,
interpreted as belonging to colossal men (Pagnozzi 1823).
In the Peloponnese large bones were found with a strange dark
to blackish color, attributed to the giants expelled and incinerated
by the laming arrows of Zeus (the famous Gigantomachy). In
fact, the particular color is related to the speciic conditions of

preservation of bones in these areas. Because of the presence of
brown coal, the bones are characterized by a classical dark color,
usually an indication of abundance of organic matter.
An interesting case among the fossil bones related to the giants
is that of the large femur found in Vienna during the excavations
for the construction of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It was attributed to
a giant that perished in the catastrophic Great Flood (Avanzini &
Kustatscher 2016). At present the bone, probably attributable to
mammoths and accompanied by original parchment dated 1443,
is preserved at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of
Vienna (Figure 9). In the iteenth century other bones of large
mammals were found in Vienna and the surrounding area and
were attributed to mythological characters, especially to the bib-
lical giants Gog and Magog (Avanzini & Kustatscher 2016). he
belief in the remains of giants was documented in numerous
travel reports. hose of Aimon (Figure 10), traditional founder
of the Abbey of Wilten in Vienna (Figure 11), were illustrated
by many travelers so that in the seventeenth century, the abbot
ordered to carry on some excavation in search of those legendary
remains. he excavations were completed with no other indings
but resulted in the partial collapse of the church.
In 1613 Nicola Abicot, anatomist and famous surgeon of St.
Cosimo in Paris, published his ‘Giant Histology’(Giganteostologia),
in which airms the ‘truth’ of the giants, and that of huge bones
referred to the Teutonic King. he same year Jean Riolan, phy-
sician and famous anatomist of the Paris faculties, wrote against
Abicot publishing the ‘Giganteomachia, he discovered impos-
ture of the bones attributed to King Teutonic (1614) and the
Giganteologia of 1618.
Italian authors in favour of Giant remains
Ludovico Moscardo published in 1656 the illustration of his
famous museum at Verona in which were preserved and dis-
played, in addition to objects of natural history, material related
to art, numismatics, archeology, and many other disciplines. A
speciic chapter of the work is devoted to the giants (Figure 12),
in connection with a large tooth preserved at his museum and
attributable to very huge men. Leaving aside the ‘Poets inven-
tions’, Moscardo quotes the authority of sacred texts (‘Sacre
lettere’ in the words of the author) in particular the Genesis
Figure 9. Femur of Mammuth interpreted as a bone of a giant and preserved as a
relic in st. stephen’s cathedral in Vienna.
Note: courtesy of geologisches archiv - Universität Wien.
HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 9
which speaks about the giant Goliath killed by the ‘young’
David. Moscardo reports that according to Agostino Ferentilli,
the giants originated in the time of Methuselah from the union
between the men of the generation of Seth and the beautiful
women of Cam (Moscardo 1656). Using Antonio Sabellico as
reference, Moscardo (1656) mentions the tomb of Antheo in the
City of Tigenia, the giant human head discovered on the Island of
Candia, and the gigantic human body brought to light in Crete.
Even in Moscardo (1656) we found the theory (using Sansovino
as authorities) that these men were so gigantic and generationally
not very far from the father Adam, ‘formed by God perfect in all
parts’. According to Sansovino, the men in ‘such irst age’ were of
larger dimensions but, over time, this ‘natural virtue’ diminished,
bringing the man to average small size.
In the text ‘he Lucania, Discourses’ of 1717, Giuseppe
Antonini reports the letter by Francesco Mazzarella Farao ‘On
the existence of the Giants, denied by Magnoni’. As traditional
sources in favor of the legend, he quotes the Bible (he speaks of
Rephaim, Enim, Zomzommin, Enacim and Goliath), Homer,
and the writings by Virgil, Eusebius of Caesarea, St. John
Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of Alexandria; however Farao (in
Antonini 1717) reports that Cicero, speaking of the giants’ war
against the gods, considered it simply an allegory. He also reports
that some naturalists are opposed to the existence of the giants
and their disproportionate size which is quite contrary ‘to the
economy’ and ‘harmony in the Universe’; especially considering
that the ‘Nature has given to all things a certain size, which is not
allowed to be exceed’ (a similar reasoning is also found in Calmet
1730). Despite these contrary assumptions, the author seems to
be certain of the existence of Hercules, Oreste seven cubits tall,
Pusio, and Secondilla from the time of Augustus, more than 10
feet tall. he existence of the giants in the past is taken for granted
by the author, which explains their current absence by the will
of God, which ‘no longer permitted, that a so malignant race,
subsisted longer in time’. In support of his theory, he calls into
question the bones of ‘prodigious size’ observed in Hebron (and
mentioned by Josephus), and the writings by Tertullian who,
in his ‘de resurrectione carnis’, talks about the possibility of the
resurrection of dead bodies, especially of the giants starting from
their skeletons ‘that are found still complete’ in some excavations
in Carthage. hen Farao (in Antonini 1717) reports a giant tooth
of St. Christopher preserved and venerated in Vercelli and other
bones of the saint, ‘with a stupendous greatness’, preserved in
Turin. Another relic, in particular the thigh bone of the Saint,
would be preserved in Venice in the Church of Crociferi. He
reports again the narrative by Antonio Sabellico about the giant
man’s head ‘the size of a barrel’, discovery ater the removal of
a tree. hen quotes the story by Riccardo Simone, who in his
Dictionary of the Bible of 1667, claims that during the works to
build a reservoir an ancient tomb,with ‘bones of a prodigious
size’, was excavated. hese remains, including some big teeth,
are preserved, according to the author, in the Molard Castle in
Vienna, near the village of S. Valerio. he author also says that
Phlegon in his ‘de rebus mirabil.’ tells that during the reign of
Tiberius a series of large earthquakes in Sicily made ‘overthrow’
a large portion of a mountain, which let uncovered numerous
human bodies of enormous size; skeletons that, according to
the author, probably belonged to those Cyclopes found in the
poetry tales (reported also in Calmet 1730). A recovered tooth
10 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI

Figure 11. External facade of the abbey of Wilten with the statues of the giants in
entrance (Photo by Marco avanzini).

Figure 10. Haymon with the ‘dragon tongue’ and the monastery of Wilten in the
bottom.
Note: copper engraving of the ‘Topographia Provinciarum Austriacarum’ by Matthäus Merian
(1679).

was brought directly to Rome to the Emperor Tiberius that ‘for

scruple … … did not wanted to touch it at all’, but charge an
expert mathematician to reconstruct, via formulas, a body pro-
portioned to such giant tooth. In 1042, a man’s body was found
in Rome that, once led into town and set up against a wall, was
as tall as the building (reported even by Calmet 1730; which adds
the possible attribution of the skeleton to the giant Pallas). Farao
(in Antonini 1717) once again reports the Boccaccio’s narrative of
the giant Erice, and Ajax’s body brought to light by wave action
on the coast. he Emperor Hadrian, visiting the ruins of Troy,
wants to see the huge body; however being terriied by it, ordered Figure 12. giant’s theet.
From: Note, overo, Memorie del mvseo di Lodovico Moscardo nobile veronese uno dei padri
to reconstruct the tomb and to bury the body again (Mazzarella dell’Accademia Filarmonica dal medesimo descritte in tre libri. Nel primo si discorre delle
Farao 1717; episode mentioned also in Calmet 1730). cose antiche, le quali in detto museo si trouano – Nel secondo delle pietre, minerali, e terre –
Nel terzo de corali, conchiglie, animali, frutti, & altre cose in quello contenute. Verona 1672,
Even Mazzarella Farao (1717) discusses the theory of the andrea rosi, 488 pp. (p.122).
‘degradation’ of the human species, giving for granted that the
irst generations starting from Adam were giants; subsequently
the nature, gradually losing its vital force, has led to an average further states that even if occasionally we can be confused by
continuous diminution of the human body. In the inal part of bones actually belonging to elephants or whales, the existence
the letter, the author states that even if the nature generates some- of real bones of giants is beyond question and then their reality
times directly in the ground some objects similar to human bones cannot be in doubt.
(therefore embracing at least partially the hypothesis of inorganic Cesare Calino in his ‘Sacred and Moral lessons above the
origin for fossils), this is not the case for complete skeletons. He irst Book of Kings …’ of 1720, talks about the giant mentioned

by Pliny and the famous tooth mentioned by St. Augustine.
Quoting the Bible and Deuteronomy, Calino reports the height
of Goliath equal to six arms and a span, and the height of Og
King of Bashan, whose iron bedstead was nine arms long.
According to Calino (1720) these statures, even being mighty,
are the largest that can be accepted for the giants without result-
ing in ridiculous fable. However he warns that no writer seems
to have seen one of these giants still alive, but only the bones are
preserved which in many cases are nothing but ‘simple stones,
conigured by nature in human shapes’. But he accepts the exist-
ence of giant men in Mexico and, following the explanations of
Cardano, attributes their great size to ‘properties, and goodness
of nourishment’.
Even Giambattista Vico in his ‘Principles of New Science’ of
1744 devotes a chapter to the giants and Great Flood. In the text
the author mentions the ‘large skulls’ and the bones of enormous
size found on mountains and referred to giant men (that must
have inhabited the earth immediately ater the Great Flood). He
also reports of large weapons and giant bones held by Emperor
Augustus in his museum. Vico claims that in the ‘irst World’
two ‘genera’ of men were present, one of proper body size (the
Jews), and another of giants who were the ‘Authors of the Gentiles
Nations’ as reported in the Sacred Texts.
In the ‘Description of ancient and modern Rome’ of 1750,
Gregorio Roisecco describes the villa of the ‘Mr. Prince Chigi’ in
Rome, originally built for the Abbot Salvetti and restructured or
‘embellished’ subsequently at the hands of Cardinal Chigi. Ater
describing the large garden, Roisecco reports of a kind of real
Cabinet, where the Prince collects and exhibits various curiosities
or archaeological and natural oddities; these include ‘the corpse
of a queen of Egypt, well preserved among many bands, and
explanation of her origins’, but also ‘shells, pearls, corals, ish
lithiied, men’, and bones of giants, however been lost with the
rest of the collection.
In 1760 Joseph Torrubia, General Commissioner of the
Roman Curia, published a text in defense of giants and against
the objections raised by a ‘Italian Erudite’, with the title ‘he
Spanish Gigantology Vindicated’. he author had already
addressed the issue of the huge bones of giants in his ‘Apparatus
for the Natural History’ published in Madrid in 1754, a text
devoted essentially to the Great Flood and its demonstration.
Torrubia reports that even though the existence of giants is
believed by many authoritative authors, several scholars, includ-
ing many naturalists, opposed it considering these large bones
as the remains of animals killed during the Great Flood. Among
these he cites the work of the Knight Hans Sloane (see above) as
one of the irst to support ‘animatedly this party’, followed later
by the Spanish P. Master Feyjoò and by an Italian author via an
anonymous letter. In favor of the existence of giants, Torrubia
reports some writings including those of Virgil, St. Augustine,
P. Ascosa, P. Calmet (see above), Francesco Hernandez, Pietro
de Zieza, and Don Lorenzo Botturini Benaducci. Furthermore,
he refers to the ancient American cosmogony, citing the four
ages of the world where a huge nation of men is contemplated,
and destroyed by the Great Flood during the second epoch.
he current absence of elephants in the American continent,
combined with evidence that no tusks are found along the great
skeletons and molars (as otherwise observed in other skeletons
found in Europe), is a strong evidence in favor of the giants
HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 11
and contrary to the hypothesis of elephantine bones (Torrubia
1760). his evidence, according to the author, is entirely sui-
cient to dismantle the theories proposed by Sloane. Similarly,
the hypothesis excludes that the carcasses of large quadrupeds
have been brought in these areas by the waters and currents
of the Great Flood (Torrubia 1760); an hypothesis found by
diferent Italian authors, to explain, for example, the presence in
Siberia of mammals typical of warm climates (e.g. Ermenegildo
Pini, see Romano 2016b). Still in support of giants, Torrubbia
reports the stories of the journey of Don Pietro Sarmiento de
Gamboa, Knight of Galicia, in the Magellan Strait during which
he saw giant humans alive, called ‘Patagonian’ (inhabitants of
Patagonia) and he also manages to take one prisoner that led
him to his ship.
In the second part of the text, Torrubia reports at length a
letter against the existence of the giants, where the anonymous
author uses extremely interesting and ‘modern’ reasoning. he
author of the letter strongly denies the existence of giants, and
suggests that careful comparisons need to be made (which had
never been done before according to him) with all known verte-
brates, as already indicated by Sloane. He highlights the fact that
so many species are still unknown, especially if we consider the
marine environment and ish (maybe he includes even cetaceans)
that as long as one will not make the comparison with all these
species it cannot be claimed that these big bones are referable to
giant men. In addition, the anonymous author emphasizes how
the myth of the Great Flood and giants are popular on all conti-
nents, probably indicating a common origin: the impossibility of
explaining, on the basis of knowledge of the time, some evidence
such as fossils of marine animals on the high peaks of mountains
and huge bones. In addition, although the author does not want
to question the truth of the Great Flood as found in sacred texts,
he claims that this catastrophic event is not suicient to explain
the great number and arrangement of marine fossils found in
sediments far from the sea, even in the highest mountains. he
second part of the work by Torrubia is essentially a further
attempt to prove the existence of the giants, especially using the
‘real existence’ of the Patagonian, ‘enormous man’ found in the
Strait of Magellan and described by many travelers (Figure 13).
he author also reports a long list of animal and plant species
in the world characterized by gigantic size, wondering why this
process should not be observed also in the human species: ‘If
Nature in all species produces giants, why it will not produce it
in the human species?’ (Torrubia 1760).
The ‘Giants’ form Sicily
One of the irst Italian testimonies of Quaternary quadruped
bones interpreted as the remains of giants is found in the ‘History
of Sicily’ by Tommaso Fazello, originally published in 1573 (in
the bibliography it is reported as the 1817 edition translated
from the ancient Sicilian to Tuscan). Fazello, using Beroso and
Homer as sources, states that the irst inhabitants of Sicily were
the Cyclops, gigantic men of which the remains are found also
today in caves (Figure 14). he author considers this irst occupa-
tion by the giants as a certain and indisputable fact; the existence
of giants in the past according to Fazello is also ‘demonstrated’
by the Sacred Scripture and particularly by the words of Moses.
As a general proof for the existence of these powerful men the
12 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI
Figure 13. the ‘Patagonian giants’. Unknown original sources. (a) from http://www.
altrogiornale.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/giantsofpatagonia.jpg; (B) from
http://www.dudemag.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/patagonian-giants-1768.
jpg.
author mentions the various corpses found in the course of time
and attributed to the giants by classics authors: the tomb of the
giant Antaeus (Figure 15) in Mauritania mentioned by Strabo;
the body of Ilium, son of Hercules buried in Phrygia, the body of
Orestes, seven cubits in length from the Nemean forest, and that
of Ajax; the giant skeleton found on the Orontes River narrated
by Philostratus; the ark with the body of twelve cubits found
in Coo; the body and the head of the giant found on the island
of Lemnos; the skeleton of forty cubits found in Candia and
described by Pliny; the giant body brought to light by the current
of a river in Candia and observed personally by L. Flaccus and
L. Metellus.
Ater the writings of Boccaccio, Fazello is among the irst
Italian writers to mention the famous ‘giant’ of Mount Erice near
Trapani in Sicily. he legend, later found in many subsequent
authors with the same general structure, narrates that some farm-
ers entering into a large cave found the seated corpse of a gigantic
man, resting with his let hand on a stick ‘with a shape of a vessel
tree’. Once touched, the body turns completely to ashes except
for a large lead rod, three maxillary teeth ‘of incredible size’ and
a portion of the skull. In memory of this extraordinary fact, the
Ericini put the recovered teeth on an iron wire and laid them at
the foot of a cruciix in the Church of the Annunciation (Fazello
1817). he author reports that according to ‘wisest men’ the body
belongs to the giant Erice, King of that land killed by Hercules.
Fazello later reports the discovery of a body of a giant near the
Castle Mazzareno (Sicily), founded by construction workers
during the excavations to build a house. he body was carried
to the castle but, ater various vicissitudes, it also turned to dust,
with the exception, even in this case, of the maxillary teeth. In
memory of the fact, the giant was depicted in a painting of the
palace realized for the Countess Emilia, ater the death of her
husband Count Giovanni.
Fazello reports that just below the castle of Milillo, on the
Hyblaean Mountains, numerous tombs of giants were found,
‘out of which large maxillary teeth are continuously excavated’.
Many of these teeth were collected by the noble Pietro Paulo and
donated to Fazello ‘to constitute evidence to those who did not
believe, and each of those weighs four ounces’. According to the
author, other burial of giants would be at Iccara, twelve miles
from Palermo, at the foot of Monte Lungo from which ‘teeth,
and bones of prodigious dimensions have been excavated’. In
the same way, three miles from Palermo, near a spring called
‘Mar Dolce’, Mr. Paul Leonti found the bones of a human body of
eighteen cubits. However, reports Fazello, the bones also turned
into ashes when ‘handled’, with the exception of a single jaw.
According to Fazello, in Syracuse the Knight Giorgio Adorni
Genovese was led into a large cave by his dog during a hunting
trip. In the cave he found ancient gold and silver coins and some
jugs and vases of ‘very good quality’. Continuing to explore the
cave downwards, he come across ‘a men corpse twenty cubits
tall’, which, however, once touched turned to ashes except for
part of the head, ribs, and shins. he author narrates that in
the castle of Petraglia, during the excavation for the construc-
tion of barns ordered by Lady Susanna Gonzaga (wife of Count
Pietro Cardona Golisano), the masons found many giants tombs
closed with hewn stones; the burials contained skeletons about
eight feet long. Lady Susanna donated a jaw with two articulated

Figure 14. (a) Polyphemus marble head (irst century a.D.) and dwarf elephant skull. the large nasal cavity, from which in life the proboscis departed, has been interpreted
by several authors as a single central orbit, giving rise to the myth of the cyclops; (B) skull of Palaeoloxodon falconeri (courtesy of Museo di storia Naturale di Verona).
Figure 15. the giant antaeus.
Note: gustave Doré’s illustrations to Dante’s Divine comedy.
teeth, weighing about two ounces each, to Fazello and are still
preserved in his home.
Fazello concludes that all these indings show without a doubt
the existence of giants in Sicily and believes these huge men gen-
erated ‘by virtue of stars, for the conjunction of planets, for vigor-
ous mixing of elements’, by the will of God ‘who wanted to show
his might, in making such great men’. Fazello equally explains the
current absence of gigantic men with lack of such ancient virtue
of the stars, the absence of the ancient conjunctions of planets,
HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 13
the ‘virtues of the seed’ which is currently of lower value, and
the will of God now opposed to the birth of ‘these kinds of men’.
According to Fazello, in Sicily ater the irst peopling of Cyclops
‘which were giants’, came the Sicanians of Spanish origin.
In 1656, Vincenzo Auria published ‘Of the origin and antiq-
uity of Cefalu very pleasant city of Sicily’. Quoting the writings of
hucydides, the author reports that in Sicily the Sicani succeeded
to the giant Cyclops and Laestrygonians in the island’s population.
In particular, the Sicanians populated at irst mountainous and
inaccessible areas, precisely to defend themselves from the cruel
Cyclops, who used to kill people and create disorder. In support
of these hypotheses Auria (1656) reports a short manuscript writ-
ten by Dr. Gio. Battista Spinola, nobleman of Cefalu, a ‘learned
and curious person, with blessed memory’. In this manuscript was
reported the discovery in 1621, of a giant corpse of extraordinary
dimensions in the district called ‘La Cultura’. he theory of the
giants called Laestrygonians or Cyclops as the irst inhabitants of
the island is also mentioned in the ‘Kassandra’ by Licofrone. Auria
(1656) also reports the discovery in 1342 at Mount S. Giuliano of
the body of the giant Erice, defeated by Hercules (found also in
Fazello, see above). Cluverio in his ‘Ancient Sicily’ (Book 2, Chapter
17) opposed the writers who indicate the Etna caves as the place
were Ulysses killed the famous giant Polyphemus (Figure 16), pre-
ferring as location the caves of Erice (Auria 1656). he existence
of huge men as the irst inhabitants of the island is conirmed,
according to the author, by several indings, including the numer-
ous giant graves found in the ancient city of Hiccaria, ten miles
from Palermo. In conclusion, the existence of giants in the western
part of Sicily is considered as an undeniable truth supported by the
discovery of fossil bones, and is used by Auria (1656) to prove the
great antiquity of Cefalù.
In 1745, Francesco di Maria D’Avola published the work ‘Ibla
Rediviva’. he author reports that the irst inhabitants of Sicily
were the giants Cyclops, Laestrygonians, Phoenicians, and the
Lotus Eaters who reached the island from Greece, shortly ater the
Great Flood. In support of this hypothesis, he reports a corpse,
measuring twenty cubits, excavated by Giorgio Adorno Genovese
Knight Gerosolimitano in 1548 in the countryside of Giarte (today
14 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI
Figure 16. Ulysses blinding Polyphemus.
Note: sculptural group of the irst century a.D., found in 1957 in a cave in the villa of tiberius at
sperlonga (courtesy of Museo archeologico nazionale di sperlonga – latina).
called Longarina). he presence of giants in the territory is given for
sure, to the point that the author reconstructs a precise 314 years
permanence of giants in the areas, before the arrival of the Sicans.
Giant’s remains from Campania (Southern Italy)
Another ancient testimonies of the interpretation of large quad-
ruped bones as remains of giants is found in ‘Site and Antiquities
of the city of Pozzuoli, and its very pleasant district’ by Scipione
Mazzella published in 1591. he author reports that the inhab-
itants of Pozzuoli (Campania, Southern Italy), show numerous
bones of giants ‘of enormous size’ to surprise foreigners visit-
ing the city; a surprising fact that led Pomponio Lieto to write
some poetic verses on the topic. In addition, speaking about the
Campi Flegrei he reports that several poets have linked the very
active volcanism of the area (such as sulfur waters and fuma-
roles), to the famous battle of the giants with Hercules (Figure
17). According to the poets, the wounds of fulminates and felled
giants have led to the ‘boiling of ire and water’, a legend reported
also in the verses of Strabo and Paolo Portarello (Mazzella 1591).
Mazzella then reports the classic legend of the giants sons of
Titan and Earth (or generated directly from the Earth), char-
acterized by bodies of ‘extraordinary size’ and feet covered
with ‘poisonous dragons’. Proud and haughty, the giants tried
the known rebel climbing against the gods, but Jupiter repelled
them with lightning and used them as an example by relegating
and imprisoning them below the volcano Etna (Mazzella 1591).
Mazzella (1591) states that the issue of giant remains should
not be regarded as completely absurd and fabulous, and quotes
in this regard the giants of extraordinary size of the Bible, as
Goliath killed by David and Antaeus (of which, according to the
author, was found and restored as the monument by Sarotio in
Mauritania). In the same way, to support the existence of such
monstrous men the author quotes Herodotus for large bones of
the giant Orestes found in Arcadia and those of Pallas discovered
in Rome. According to Mazzella (1591) other evidence would be
some large bones housed in the Museum of the ‘diligent investi-
gator’ Ferrante Imperato from Naples, with scholars and curious
Figure 17. the struggle between the mythological hero Hercules and caco;
Hercules kills the enemy giant quartering with bare hands.
Note: sculpture on pyroclastic rocks in the ‘Parco dei Mostri, o sacro Bosco di Bomarzo’
(‘Monster Park, or sacred grove of Bomarzo’, Bomarzo, Viterbo, lazio). Kindly permission of
sacro Bosco di Bomarzo. Photo by isabella salvador.
who came also from distant and remote countries in order to see
the natural riches kept by the naturalist in his cabinet.
In the work published in 1634, Giulio Cesare Capaccio, talk-
ing about the area of Pozzuoli and about sulphurous waters, men-
tions the bones of giants preserved in the city. He warns, however,
to not confuse such bones with those preserved in the gardens of
Pietro di Toledo, since the latter have proved to be whale bones.
hen, speaking about the Vesuvius and its eruptions, the author
reports the ‘fables’ of the giants defeated with the arrows found
in the writes of Philostratus; according to Capaccio (1634) the
Neapolitans ‘were proud to have the bones of giant Alcyoneus
and of other awestruck with him in this mountain’.
Capaccio published another work in 1652 entitled ‘he true
antiquity of Pozzuoli’ where he briely returns to the topic of
the giants. Quoting Suetonius he reports that in Capri were
preserved some bones of huge beasts, interpreted as a limb of
giants. However, says Capaccio (1652), according to several phi-
losophers, heophrastus between them, bones of marine and
terrestrial animals can be generated directly in the ground (a
classical theory for the inorganic origin of fossils). According
to Georg Bauer in the Luneburgense territory ‘were born bones
of sea-beasts’ converted to hard stone. On the base of these

‘evidences’, the author suggests that such cases of spontaneous
origin in the ground could solve, in some way, the problem of
giants, without resorting to hypotheses too bold or imaginative
(Capaccio 1652). Speaking of volcanoes, especially of Etna and
sulfur fumes, Capaccio (1652) reports that Strabo positioned
southern to Salento area (Apulia, Southern Italy) a City called
Levea, characterized by nauseatingly smelly water. he cause of
this smelly water is due, according to the author, to the giant
bodies defeated in the battle of Flegra and buried by Hercules
in those ields. hen it was the rotten blood, leaving the giant’s
bodies, that generated the putrid water.
Giants from Calabria (Southern Italy)
Carlo Calà (1660) reports that the lawyer from Cosenza D.
Annibale di Raimo in a letter to Mr. Viceroy Count of Pegnaranda
speaks of a cave in the territory of Paterno (Cosenza), where a
treasure was found by some citizens in 1659. he latter were
conducted in those places thanks to a woman who dreamed
two giants buried in that location, with a treasure hidden below
their corpses. he ‘Regia Audienza’ of this province therefore
commissioned Dr. Angelo from Matera to recognize the place
indicated in the letter (in particular ‘Colle del Carpineto’) and to
visit personally the site to make an inspection. On this occasion
numerous bones of ‘giant’ were found, and, among them, a body
of sixteen palms in length. However, gripped by an intense down-
pour, they were forced to return to Cosenza and Dr. Angelo wrote
the letter reported in full in Calà (1660). he author reports that
in the cave, renamed ater the discovery ‘Cave of the Giants’, was
also found an epitaph engraved on copper saying: ‘Won by Enrico
Calà, who was called to a duel,/ here lies Rubichello beneath
the tomb of the Giants;/ Who avenged the death of his brother
Marrucco …’. So the bones of Quaternary vertebrates found in
the caves were used by the author in support of the legend that
the two giants, Rubichello and Marducco, slain by the sword of
Giovanni Calà, direct ancestor of the author.
Giants from Sardinia
In 1792 Matteo Madao published the ‘Historical apologetic critics
dissertations of Sardinian antiquities’. In the chapter dealing with
the irst peopling of the island of Sardinia, the author returns
several times on the subject of the giants, claiming that initially
gigantic men extensively occupied the territory. Quoting histor-
ical sources as Beroso, Annio Viterbese, Albertino, dal Pineda,
Andrea Scoto, and the Sardinian erudite Francesco Fava, in fact,
the irst inhabitants of Sardinia are identiied precisely as ‘gigantic
antediluvian families’. However, according to the author, in addi-
tion to the written and oral statements by ancient writers, the irst
peopling of the island by giants is conirmed by the numerous
indings of ‘ribs, shins and monstrous human bones of gigantic
corpses’, both found in old graves and isolated places. Similarly,
the classic giant megalithic constructions of Sardinia called
‘Nuraghi’ are explainable, according to Madao, only assuming a
population of giant men (the author speaks about ‘stones of such
strange greatness that twelve strong men cannot move them’).
In support of his theory, Madao (1792) reports all the diferent
sources and information already mentioned in the text in favor of
giants and huge skeletons. To those Madao adds the ‘truths’ found
HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 15
in the sacred texts, especially in the 6th chapter of the book of
Genesis where Moses says: ‘Gigantes erant super terram in diebus
illis’. According to Madao, the Bible ‘demonstrates’ not only that
the giants existed in the past but that such huge men inhabited the
Earth ‘for the entire space of the antediluvian ages’. Regarding the
large bones, Madao (1792) reports some cases where this material
was later revealed as belonging to ‘monstrous animals’, such as
the hand of a whale found in England (initially attributed to a
giant) and probably the bones preserved by Augustus in the villas
of Capri. It is therefore possible, writes the author, that also in
Sardinia some of these ‘large corpses’ belong to mighty quadru-
peds, although the general existence of giants is not questionable
according to Madao. To ind large bones inside the graves of the
island does not necessarily indicate that the giants were the irst
inhabitants. It could also be possible, writes Madao, that the bod-
ies of giants have been distributed throughout the Earth, even in
Sardinia, by the rushing waters of the Great Flood that destroyed
the race. heir corpses, found scattered on the island, would later
be collected by the irst inhabitants of Sardinia (‘postdiluvian
men’) and buried, for respect or fear, in the graves where they are
currently found. In Madao, the existence of even a ‘postdiluvian’
giant is based again on testimonies of the sacred texts and on the
myth of Patagonian giants, ‘observed’ by sailors beside the Strait
of Magellan. Such evidence lead to the conclusion that even in
Sardinia existed giants ater the Great Flood, and so the numerous
huge corpses found must not necessarily be attributed to the ‘early
giants of the irst age of the world’ (Madao 1792). According to
the author, however, the classic ancient island constructions called
‘Nuraghi’, characterized by a mighty and ‘indestructible’ structure
that has withstood the centuries, as well as copper weapons found
in the most remote and inaccessible places of the island, could be
evidence of antediluvian giants of the irst age of the world. his
is already revealed by the vernacular names of such constructions
‘Domos de Orcos’, were ‘Orcos’ in the Sardinian language means
‘extremely large and monstrous person’. Madao (1792) concludes
his text with the following reasoning: since Sardinia was inun-
dated by the Deluge, and being that the Great Flood was a divine
punishment sent to destroy the impious race of giants, it follows
that even Sardinia must have been inhabited at that time by gigan-
tic and wicked men. Otherwise, claims the author, the action of
the Creator on the island with stormy waters of the lood would
be completely meaningless and useless (Madao 1792).
In the ‘Historical sonnets on Sardinia’, Gianandrea Massala
(1808) discusses the over 700 Nuraghe found in Sardinia and
the irst peopling of the island. he author reports the numerous
interpretations proposed over time for these architectural works,
and among the diferent hypotheses some support (see above)
the work ‘of the antediluvian giants’: colossal men that, according
to the book of Genesis, ‘were scattered all over the Earth’. Such
structures would serve as houses or burial sites, and the exist-
ence of such gigantic men would be proved by the discovery of
entire skeletons of extraordinary dimensions. However, Massala
(1808) regards that theory as very weak and unlikely, since the
size and the narrowness of many rooms and the ‘smallness of
the entrances, or doors’ in these structures could not contain
giants of such big size.
In 1850, Antonio Bresciani published ‘Of the costumes of the
island of Sardinia compared with ancient Eastern peoples’ where,
among many topics, the author also speaks of megalithic works
16 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI

known as tombs of the giants. Although we are already in the

middle of the nineteenth century and the natural sciences -par-
ticularly comparative anatomy- have already made enormous
steps forward, Bresciani still irmly believes that giants were
the irst inhabitants of Sardinia. he author states that whereas
many skeletons found on hills and mountains have proved to
belong in fact to elephants, mastodons, or other beasts of the
past (the author cites ichthyosaurs, megalosaurs, pterodactyls),
this does not apply to the large skeletons found inside the tombs.
According to the author, even if in many burial sites no skele-
tons are found because of decomposition, the enormous size of
the coins are evidence that human bodies stored inside were
proportionally gigantic. To this he adds the direct testimony of
the island shepherds who state to have seen with their own eyes
huge human skeletons, with rib cages, large skulls, strong jaws,
and an 11-foot skeleton seen also by a priest in the Barbagia,
brought on site by a local shepherd. Bresciani (1850) therefore
does not understand why the learned men still deny so stub-
bornly the existence of giants on the Earth ‘in very ancient times
of the world’, considering that, besides the recovered skeletons,
we ind certain and indisputable testimony of titanic men in the
Holy Bible (Bresciani 1850). Such a statement should not seem
excessively naive since, even in the academic environment, the Figure 18. the relative size of the several classical giants, reported by the Jesuit
athanasius Kircher in his ‘Mundus Subterraneus’ (1665) to show the absurdity of
knowledge of human remains with size much higher than the the reconstructed height for the giant mentioned by Boccaccio (i.e. Erice).
norm was not uncommon during the second half of the twentieth Note: the tallest on the left is the Erice giants, followed to the right by the normal human,
goliath, the swiss giant and the giant of Mauritania.
century. In archeology, frequent reference is made to the ‘Giant
of Castelnau’, three bone fragments discovered by Georges de
Lapouge in 1890 at the base of a Bronze Age burial mound at the
Castelnau-le Lez site (Lapouge 1890). According to the discov- such evidence, the famous bones of ‘giants’ (actually real bones of
erer, the bones belong to one of the greatest human beings ever large quadrupeds) found at Spira, in Palatinate (near Edinburgh
existed and almost three and a half meters tall. in Silesia), and other places have to be generated directly in situ,
inside rocks and sediments. Bonanni thus resolves the issue pre-
ferring an inorganic origin for such natural objects (as for many
Italian author opposing the mith of Giants
other fossils).
In the ‘Recreation of the eye and mind in the observation of In 1688 Giovanni Ciampini from Rome properly recognized
snails’ published in 1681, Filippo Bonanni calls into question as material referable to ancient elephants some large bones found
the supposed bones and teeth of giants, in the broader discourse in Vitorchiano near Viterbo (see Sloane 1734) in 1687 (ive verte-
about the nature of fossils and fossilization. Bonanni states that brae, bones of the shoulder and part the rib cage) and believed by
even if a ‘lapidifying juice’ can turn into stone shells and bones many as bones of giants. Ciampini used several drawings of the
by creeping into the pores (once ‘corrupted’ the original organic famous elephant exhibited in the ‘Museo Mediceo’ in Florence,
matter) and maintaining the original igure, he cannot be per- and once completed the comparison with the bones under study
suaded that the many stones in the shape of huge limbs actually he had no further doubt about the attribution of the material to
represent real bones of giants. Furthermore, although it is true fossil elephants (see also Sloane 1734).
that many people and ancient authors directly saw these huge As briely discussed above, in his work of 1718, Niccolo
bones, according to Bonanni the size reported for these giants Madrisio speaks of the supposed giant bones (especially of the
would be impossible and ridiculously exaggerated. He quotes giant Antigonus of Antwerp), reporting that a great part of this
in this regard the giant of Candia 138 palms tall, the 180 palms material is actually referable to elephants. According to the
for the giant of Mauritania (as reported by Pliny) and the 600 author, therefore, these bones in general are ‘a weak argument
palms high giant of Mount Erice from Trapani (about 155 m). to prove the ancient Giants’, or to infer that the size of the men of
In support of this observation, the author mentions the work of the past were generally bigger than the current ones. Moreover,
Kircher that, in his Mundus Subterraneus (Kircher 1665), reports the author adds the ‘imaginative’ hypothesis (but fairly wide-
to having visited the cave in question (he speaks in particular of spread at the time) that buried bones can grow in situ with the
Erice) and to have found the entrance and the vault not higher passage of time, at the hands of waters rich of ‘eluvia’ and for
than 30 palms: a size totally not suitable to contain the 600 palms ‘addition of part’. In this way, the gigantic bones and the famous
giant (‘disproportionate tower of lesh’, in the words of the author) huge molar from Utica mentioned by St. Augustine in the De
of which fabled Boccaccio (Figure 18). According to Bonanni, Civitate Dei, according to Madrisio (1718) may have increased in
the famous giant Goliath, considered as absolutely real by the size according to this process. In fact, he reports that Ambrosio
author, was not higher than nineteen palms, and even smaller Paréo placed one of his teeth inside a crate in an underground
was the a famous giant for Portugal brought to Venice. Based on room, inding it doubled in size ater a few years. Madrisio also

reports the supposed bones of giants found and preserved in
Pozzuoli, and inally seems to consider the ancient giants simply
as a widespread fable, emphasized by verses of poets (common
in Italy and Greece).
Gianfrancesco Pivati (1747) discusses the issue of the giants
found in Sacred Scripture, writings of poets and travelers’ diaries
all around the world. However, regarding the ‘bones of enormous
size’ found underground since the time of Pliny, and used as
certain proof of the existence of huge men, Pivati reports that
more careful subsequent observations have led to the referral of
this material to whales or elephants.
Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti in his well-known travel reports
of Tuscany (Targioni Tozzetti 1752), discusses the large bones
of vertebrates found in Tuscany and other parts of Italy and of
the world. Targioni Tozzetti reports that many large molars -or
very large bones- have been attributed in diferent countries
(and at diferent times) to the mighty giants of poets and Sacred
texts (Figure 19). In this regard, he reports the bones found in
Transylvania and referred to a dragon; the molar tooth with a
weight of 28 ounces ascribed to a giant, but considered to be from
an elephant by Antonio Pozzi; the well-known bone exposed in
Caesarea Gallery in Vienna, found in 1644 ‘in lower Austria’, and
those found in the Netherlands again referred to giant humans.
Targioni Tozzetti also mentions the large skeletons attributed to
giants preserved at the villa of Augustus, but regarded without
Figure 19. Fossil molar theet of classically interpreted as giant’s theet.
Note: Elephas primigenius, Elaphas antiquus and Elephas meridionalis, from lyell (1863,
igure p. 133).
HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 17
doubt by the author as bones of whales or elephant. In any case,
the author considers noteworthy the collection realized by the
Emperor, representing the irst ‘prince’ who has undertaken the
systematic collection ‘of Antiquities, and natural things’, i.e. the
irst ‘to make Galleries’. According to Targioni Tozzetti it is not
surprising that bones of quadrupeds were referred to giant men
in the past, considering that ‘even today are not lacking many
who irmly believe in Giants’. his is a hypothesis that cannot be
supported in light of new knowledge; according to the author
we can state with conidence that ‘our large bones of the Upper
Valdarno are deinitely of Elephants, and not of Giants’. He also
reports some large bones exposed at Arezzo in the Sacristy
of the Church of Monzione, long considered as giants bones.
However, Targioni Tozzetti went personally in the mentioned
Church motivated by great curiosity, inding nothing but bones
of cetaceans and elephants, very similar to the numerous ones
that ‘are found in the ancient Arno depositis’.
In the ‘Historical Memories of the city of Piacenza’ published
in 1757, Cristoforo Poggiali describes the famous battle of the
Trebbia characterized by heavy rains and snowfall throughout
the course of the ighting. During the retreat towards Piacenza,
the armies (Romans and Carthaginians) brought many losses,
among which soldiers, horses, and even elephants died (many
of these deaths were attributed to the excessive cold). According
to Poggiali, then, all the great bones of elephants found in the
sediments of Piacenza district and interpreted as the remains of
giants (‘many fables of Giants’ in the words of the author), most
likely represent the bones of numerous elephants that drowned
or died from excessive cold in Trebbia during the famous battle
(see Romano & Palombo 2017).
Antonio Zanon in his work of 1768 ‘About the marne and
some other fossils acts to render fertile the lands’ mentions,
among the natural productions of the soil, the ‘Osteocolle’, i.e.
stones in the shape of broken bones, oten resembling the roots
of trees, sometimes round in shape with an ‘ordinarily rough
surface’. Zanon states that ‘the erudite reader’ can get certainly an
idea of how many misinterpretations can be generated from these
stones with ‘igure of bone, to which for the most part this fossil
inclines’. In fact, very large ‘Osteocelle’ have been interpreted as
bones of giants, although in reality they represent the remains
of very large ish, whale, ‘and of other sea monsters; though in a
situation very far from the sea.’ he same would be true, accord-
ing to the author, for the bones believed of unicorns and other
types of ivory preserved in natural collections.
he Abbot Alberto Fortis published the work ‘Of the bones
of elephants and other natural curiosity of the mountains of
Romagnano in Verona’ in 1786. Describing the large bones exca-
vated in the Verona area, the author makes taphonomic observa-
tions, unique for his time. he author reports that some of these
bones are partly disarticulated and broken, as found in other
localities in Europe. According to Fortis these bones were not
buried immediately ater the animal died but were subject to a
period of subaerial exposure where rainwater would have caused
the alteration. he author has no doubt that large bones stored
at the villa of Augustus in Capri belong to an elephant. Similarly,
according to Fortis, the fables of Typhon and the Flegra giants
derived essentially from the bones of elephants found in Sicily
(Messina and Palermo) and in the surroundings of Pozzuoli. he
author then discusses briely the Spanish Gigantology by Torrubia
18 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI

(see above) where the big bones are attributed ‘to a human race dug up and immediately referred to the giants. Petrini does not
of Giants’. According to Fortis, the Spanish writer did not take doubt the existence in the past of ‘Men of gigantic stature’, how-
into account at all the fauna associated with the huge bones, ever, according to the author, before deciding for sure that these
such as the numerous deer antlers found in the fossil deposits. bones are really human, a careful anatomical study is required.
herefore, the numerous bones ascribed to giants that were found In particular, discoveries of front and hind articulated autopods
in the Greek islands, in Rhodes, Santorini, and Kythira, must be of large tetrapods would display quite obviously several difer-
referred to elephants and other large quadrupeds. ences from the limbs of humans. According to Petrini, if those
Alfonso Niccolai published the ‘Dissertations and lessons parts are not preserved in the fossil record, it is necessary to use
of Sacred Scripture’ in 1791 by where, among other issues, is ‘caution before deciding’.
addressed the very debated topic of giants. Among the evidence In 1816, Onorato Bres published ‘Ancient Malta Illustrated’
of the existence of titanic men the author cites again the history where, writing on the irst ancient island population, the author
of Patagonians and their land located ‘at far southern part of discusses the ‘fable of the Giants’. Bres reports that according to
America’, supported by many travel reports. Nevertheless he, as some authors (including the historic Abela from Malta), there is
with Bufon, considered these reports to be extremely exagger- no doubt that giants once inhabited the island as evidenced by
ated and strongly doubted the existence of ‘a race of men com- the buildings made by ‘very large stones’ and the gigantic bones
posed entirely of giants’. According to Niccolai, on the basis of ‘which are found until today’. According to the author, no man
Sacred Scripture and ‘of old and modern historical memories’ with wisdom can believe in the existence of giants in the past
the existence of giants is a certainty, at least for the time before of the size reported by poets, i.e. higher than mountains, equal
the Great Flood. Despite the information reported by diferent or greater than masts, that ight as rebels against Jupiter. he
authors, Niccolai (1791) states that any giant of the past cannot be
more than 10 feet high; in fact the last giant observed in Paris was
just seven-foot high. hus he considers as extreme exaggerations
the size of giants reported by Calmet for San Cristofano, Fazello
for Sicily, Solino, Plinio, Plutarco, Boccaccio, Erodoto, Pausania,
Filostrato, Arriano, Celio Rodigino, and Acosta. About such
gigantic skeletons Niccolai warns that there are no real witnesses
who have directly seen these remains, and that for every case, a
large part of the skeleton dissolved into dust, leaving behind just
some molar teeth. In addition, many of giant bones were referred
by naturalists to elephants, whales, ‘other sea monsters’, or to
‘igured’ stones produced by nature in situ ‘in the shape of human
bones’. Niccolai then briely reports on the visit by the Jesuit of
the ‘Collegio Romano’ Kircher in the fossiliferous caves of Sicily
accompanied by the Marquis of Ventimiglia, and Hans Sloane’s
dissertation on Philosophical Transactions (see above). Quoting
the academic Mahudel and Banier, the author stresses the uni-
formity of nature ‘in its productions’, which makes it impossible
for the existence of bodies so immense and outside of the normal
laws of nature. Although some areas of the Earth have climates
and conditions that foster greater growth of individuals, these
bigger specimens according to Niccolai never exceeded more
than one or two feet the normal size. he author rightly demand
what enormous city would be necessary to host entire nations
of giants 40 cubits tall, and especially what immense amount of
food to feed all these ‘mountains of lesh’. Niccolai concludes the
issue by stating that, although in the past there have been isolated
cases of gigantism as observed also today, we must categorically
exclude the existence of entire nations of giants in ancient times.
In the ‘Mineralogical Cabinet of the Nazarene College’
published in 1792, Giovanni Vincenzo Petrini discusses the
‘Antrapoliti’ or supposed fossil human bones, found in sedi-
ments or in karst cave environments. Petrini emphasizes the fact
that fossil human bones are generally rare when compared with
those of other vertebrates and among the few cases he cites the
famous Homo diluvi testis of Scheuchzer (Figure 20), found at
Öhningen on Lake Constance and proved to be actually (thanks
to comparative anatomical studies of Cuvier) a partial skeleton
Figure 20. the famous Homo diluvi testis of scheuchzer, in reality the partial
of a fossil giant salamander (Andrias scheuchzeri). he author skeleton of the fossil giant salamander Andrias scheuchzeri (copy - MUsE di
reports that in some cases bones of extraordinary size have been trento).

aim of the text, according to Bres, is to disprove the theory of
Abela, being irmly convinced that populations of men twice as
large as normal men existed anywhere in the world. he author,
therefore, considers entirely ‘fabulous’ the reports of the body of
Antaeus, 66 cubits long as described by Plutarch, the body of 46
cubits in Crete reported by Pliny and referred to Orion, the bones
of Orestes narrated by Solino, and the testimonies of Metellus,
Lucius Flaccus and Flegonte. Bres (1816) properly questions why
it is currently not possible to see populations of giant at any place,
and why no inluential author from the past had personally seen
men of 20 or 30 cubits still alive. Furthermore, as other authors,
he emphasizes the uniformity of nature in its productions that
‘loves the variety; but never the disproportion’. Bres asks of what
kind of housing and immense amount of food these gigantic men
would need, rightly pointing out that the small island of Malta
is not the most suitable place for such a population of titans.
he ‘fable of the giants’, according to Bres, probably originated
with ancient Greeks, who, rather than educate readers by merely
reporting the truth, ‘sought to entertain readers with wonderful
tales’. In addition, the large bones found in Sicily, Malta, and
several other countries must not be referred to human bodies, but
to ‘marine calves, whales, and other sea monsters, scattered on
the ground to the efect of the great lood, or by other accident’,
as shown, among others, by Mahudel, Kircher, Muller, Moyneux,
and Hans Sloane. In the same way, Bres (1816) reports that the
large molars found in Malta, and mentioned by Abela, as well as
the famous one from Utica mentioned by Saint Augustin, must
be attributed to ‘marine monsters’ rather than to humans.
In 1817, Pianciani published ‘On the fossil bones of
Magognano’ where he describes the remains of quadrupeds
discovered in the territory of Viterbo, already famous among
naturalists for volcanic outcrops. According to Pianciani, it is
not so extraordinary to ind these fossil bones in volcanic depos-
its, since tusks and other remains have been already found in
Rome near the Basilica of St. Paul and Monteverde within tufa
and pozzolans. Pianciani reports that the irst observation of
these remains near Viterbo dates from the year 1688, with the
discovery at Vitorchiano of femora, shoulder blades, and ive
vertebrae attributed on the base of huge size and little anatom-
ical knowledge to giants. However, more accurate comparisons
allowed for the attribution of these bones to elephants, and the
misinterpretation of giant remains became gradually less fre-
quent (Pianciani 1817).
In describing the journeys in Sicily by the Knight Carlo
Castone, Francesco Mocchetti (1817) claims that the Knight vis-
ited the caves near Capaci were the ‘credulous Fazzello’ reports
the discovery of bones of giants. Castone has no doubt that these
osteological materials, represented by large vertebrae, ribs, and
huge jaws, are referable to cetaceans and not to gigantic men.
Similarly, he considered it an ‘audacious fable’ the discovery in
1342 of Erice body, as well as the supposed giant discovered
in Mount Grifone in a large cave visited by Castone. Although
rare cases of very huge men are observed also nowadays (he
cites the famous Bernardo Gigli 1726–1791 from Trentino), he
considers it impossible that there existed an entire population
twenty cubits tall.
In 1819, Giuseppe Cortesi published the ‘Geological essays of
strata of Parma and Piacenza’. According to the author, while the
number of descriptions of quadrupeds, amphibians, and reptiles
HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 19
by naturalists is deinitely high, very few are the studies focusing
on fossil cetaceans, with only brief references in the literature
of isolated bones, vertebrae, or ribs. In several occasions these
bones were initially interpreted, due to the ‘ignorance or supersti-
tion’, as the remains of giants or huge monsters that ‘infested the
provinces’, defeated and killed by the miraculous power of some
saints (Cortesi 1819). hese remains, reports Cortesi, were usu-
ally exhibited as relics in churches such as the vertebra preserved
in the parish church of Parma and referable, without any doubt,
to a cetacean. he priest, once assured that it was referable to a
fossil mammal, kept temporarly the bonein a barn temporarily
before donating it to Cortesi to enrich his cabinet of natural
history. he same fate befell the great rib shown in a Church of
Lodi and passed of as bone of a dragon killed by a saint; once
recognized as belonging to a whale, it was donated to Mr. Doctor
Villa for his naturalistic Cabinet. Even with respect to the fossil
bones of great quadrupeds, Cortesi states that ‘reigned among
the ancients the same mistakes’ found for the interpretation of
cetaceans. hus, bones of the elephants were referred to men of
extraordinary size until Ciampini in 1688 made the irst serious
anatomical comparisons, properly referring the material to large
quadrupeds.
Luigi Bossi in his ‘History of ancient and modern Italy’ of 1819
speaks briely of the villa of Augustus in Capri, stating that the
large bones attributed to giants most likely represent elephant
remains (diferently interpreted as whale bones by Pitisco). He
then speaks of the immense earthquake that destroyed twelve
of the most famous cities of Asia and that ‘was accompanied by
depression of some mountains, by the liting of some lowlands,
and by explosion of volcanic ires that went out from the ground’.
In this regard Flegone Tralliani claims that also many ancient
cities of Sicily and Calabria were damaged following the earth-
quake and that the earth, open in diferent places, brought to light
‘monstrous corpses’ from which a tooth was taken and brought
to Tiberius (see above). Bossi (1819) states that in a time when
we knew so little about anatomy, and even less on comparative
anatomy, it is not surprising that large bones of quadrupeds were
constantly and erroneously attributed to huge human cadavers.
In 1823, Friederich Münter published the Italian translation
of the ‘Journey in Sicily’, where the author speaks of the giants’
bones found in caves and burials of the island. In particular, he
cites the works of Fazello about the discovery of large skeletons
in Sicily that turned to ashes when touched or moved. Münter
(1823) quotes in full the narrative by Fazello of the discovery of
the giant of Erice (he states that it is peculiar that Fazello has not
attributed the skeleton to the Cyclops Polyphemus) and the cave
with the skeleton found in 1548 by the Knight of Malta, during a
hunting trip. Münter invites the reader to relect on the curious
fact that the only remains ‘let’ ater the destruction are precisely
those most similar to the ‘parts of a human body’. In all coun-
tries, bones have been discovered that by ‘ the uneducated’ were
believed to be bones of giants, but which in reality were of ‘ish’
or of no longer present terrestrial animals (Münter 1823). he
author inds it strange that all these discoveries of ‘gigantic men’
have taken place in past centuries, and he never personally saw
large bones comparable in structure and shape to that of man.
Luigi Bossi, in his work of 1829, speaks briely about the
geology and paleontology of various parts of Greece; addressing
in particular the Macedonia area, where he discusses the large
20 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI
bones found in sediments and brought to light by torrents. Since
the bones, in particular the tibiae, supericially resemble human
bones, the news about the inding of bones of giants spread
around the country. However, claims Bossi (1829), now that the
‘paleontograia’ has made some substantial steps forward with
the monumental illustrated work by Cuvier, it is impossible to
commit similar mistakes again.
Domenico Scinà, in the work of 1831, describes the fossil
bones found in the Palermo area in Sicily, in the locality ‘Mar
dolce’ at the foot of Mount Grifone. In the limestone rocks that
make up the mountain (the author calls deposits ‘secondary
rocks’, according to the old classiication introduced by Arduino)
a cave opens, famous since the iteenth century for the discovery
of large bones attributed to giants (Scinà 1831). In particular,
such osteological material was referred to a giant by Mariano
Valguarnera, and again referred in part to elephants and giants
by Mongitore (Scinà 1831). Scinà reports that the interpretation
of the giants was subsequently totally overcome, however still
arousing a great curiosity. he bones were collected in the cave in
huge numbers and instead of being the subject of careful analysis
and study, were sold to the curious and collectors (the author
speaks of hundreds of quintals recovered between 1829 and
1830). Many of these bones were destroyed or turned into ‘small
columns, boxes, stick knobs, urns, cameos, cups, pendants, and
other such trivial things’ for the property of the fossil material
to be inished and polished. Fortunately, once the Government
become aware of the fact, sent the police to prevent the poor
peasants to go ahead with the excavations ruining the deposit
and fossil bones; the inal aim of the Government was to collect
the material of interest, to be studied and preserved at the Natural
History Museum of the ‘Royal University of Palermo’. Since there
wasn’t yet a person set to study comparative anatomy in the city,
the author reports how many conlicting opinions were gener-
ated from the recovery and preservation of these large bones.
However, the work of Cuvier (Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles
de quadrupèdes) stored at the Library of the City was consulted
and it became clear that these bones belonged largely to hippos
and elephants (Scinà 1831).
Giulio Ferrario, in the work of 1838, speaks of the huge mega-
lithic monuments (calling them ‘huge boulders’ or ‘large masses
of accumulated stones’) found in many parts of Germany and
other northern countries including England. According to the
author, over the course of centuries, these monuments, probably
sepulchral in nature, were ‘ignorantly’ believed to be the works of
giants because of their size and strength (one of the most char-
acteristic monuments according to Ferrario is undoubtedly that
of Stonehenge ‘six miles away from Salisbury’). Ancient authors
tried to credit the tale of the giants by the evidence of large bones
found in these tombs, mixed with those of humans of normal
size (Ferrario 1838). However, some authors report that putting
animal bones in graves with human corpses was an ancient ritual,
thus solving in some way the problem of huge bones found in
burials (Ferrario 1838).
In the ‘History of the Sicily Kingdom’ published in 1844,
Giovanni Di-Blasi examines the classic topic that the irst inhab-
itants of the island were actually giants. Di-Blasi says that the
problem of the giants and its interpretation can be basically
divided into two major factions, one consisting of authors who
reject their existence without reply and a second that diferently
considers it not only possible but absolutely certain (e.g. for
several Mediterranean islands such as Sardinia and Sicily). To
this latter category belongs, according to Di-Blasi, a great part
of the old Sicilian historians including Valguernere, Inverges,
Auria, Mongitore, Aprile, Maurolico, and many later com-
mentators including Reina, Carrera, Ventimiglia, Gian Andrea
Nassa, Paci, Marotta, Filippo Amico, Chiarandà, and Noto.
However, according to Di-Blasi, the author who brought more
information contributing more extensively to the history of
the giants was undoubtedly Tommaso Fazello, with his tales of
giant corpses from Mount Erice, Mazzarino, Melilli, Calatrasi,
Palermo, Siracusa, Petralia, and several other localities. Among
the authors opposed to the initial peopling of the island by giants
he quotes Caruso and Kircker which, as already reported above,
ater measuring the caverns judged them as excessively small
to contain supposed gigantic men. Di-Blasi (1844) considers it
impossible that whole nations of giants existed in the past but
admits that sporadic cases of men bigger than normal, as can
be seen even today, are possible. In this regard, the author also
calls into question the great uniformity of nature in its processes
and productions.
he question of giant men is also treated by the famous writer,
philosopher, and Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi in ‘Essay on the
popular errors of the ancients’ of 1848. In the work, Leopardi
critics and dismantles, one by one, all the beliefs and myths that
arose from ancient writers due to their poor knowledge of the
physical world and the laws of nature. Speaking of the belief that
it was extremely dangerous to go outside in the irst hours of
the aternoon, Leopardi reports that according to Philostratus,
the shepherds did not dare get close to Flegra at noon where
‘lay the bones of giants’ fulminated by Jupiter, for fear of their
ghosts. Similarly the very low understanding of natural history
can led to the belief of every story deliberately exaggerated by
travelers, leading authors like Calmet to hypothesize in his works
entire nations of giants (Leopardi 1848). However, according to
Leopardi, the discovery of giant corpses in Sweden in 1764 and
testimonies of Rolando Martin –again reported in the Memoirs
of Sweden Academy- must lead us to suspend the judgment ‘for
the moment’ on the giant, although many exaggerations of poets
and authors must necessarily be discarded.
In his work of 1851, Ottavio degli Albrizzi, in discussing
the terrains outcropping in Tuscany and the fossils embedded
in them, speaks briely also of the supposed human bones and
bones of giants. According to the author, in light of ‘current’
anatomical studies, the bones once naively referred to races of
giants are actually interpreted without a doubt as elephant, rhino,
and mastodon remains. Even medium-sized bones would not
be attributable to human bodies but to quadrupeds of diferent
genera.
Giovanni Capellini in his work ‘On the Etruscan whale’ of
1873, discussing the discovery of some whale vertebrae found
in the Pliocene clay of the Chiusi area, reports that the bones
of the whale ‘svedenborgii’ discovered in Sweden in 1705 were
long and wrongly considered as the bones of giants. he misun-
derstanding, linked to the lack of recognition of whale bones,
widely connotes the origin and perpetuation of stories of giants
in many places of Italy. It is not infrequent that cetacean ribs and
vertebrae are preserved as relics or curiosity in small shrines of
the Italian countryside and mountains.

Discussion and conclusions
From the analysis conducted in this paper it is quite clear that the
myth of the giant appears as a legend common to many cultures,
religions, and nations, recognized in the traditions of Christians,
Jews, Scandinavians, Japanese, Mexicans, Peruvians, Brazilians
and many others (see above). When a myth is so widespread,
even in many remote areas, a possible common origin seems
very likely. As highlighted in the text, that source could be very
likely represented by the gigantic bones of vertebrates (almost
Cenozoic), found within sediments or in karst cavities: fossil
osteological material to which the populations of the past could
not provide a natural explanation, mainly because of the weak
and nebulous knowledge in anatomy and in general in both cur-
rent and fossil zoology.
In Italy, as in many other European countries and various
other parts of the world, the discovery of large bones not only led
to the legend of entire nations of giants, but was later challenged
as sure evidence of huge men, also borne by authoritative writ-
ers and passages of Holy Scripture. Starting from the sixteenth
century, Italian historians, such as the Sicilian Tommaso Fazello,
used the sacred texts, the authority of writers of the past such
Berosio and Homer, and above all the discoveries of great skel-
etons, to demonstrate that the irst populations of many islands
of the Mediterranean (among them Sicily and Sardinia), were
of giants. Colossal men, lawless and wicked, exterminated by
the divine wrath through the catastrophic Great Flood of the
Sacred Scriptures. Ater the work of Fazello, and until the end
of the eighteenth century, many Italian authors (or operating in
Italy) embraced as more than plausible (if not as incontestable
certainty) the hypothesis of ancient races of giants, among which
surely igure Capaccio (1652), Moscardo (1656), Auria (1656),
Calà (1660), Mazzarella Farao (1717), Calino (1720; although
he seems overall more prudent), Calmet (1730), Vico (1744),
di Maria (1745), Torrubia (1760), Clavigero (1780), and Madao
(1792).
In more moderate interpretative positions, some authors
claim to not want to trust at all the unbelievable and ridiculous
exaggeration of poets (bodies of more than 6000 cubits in length);
however, the large fossil bones, also found inside the tombs, seem
to indicate the existence in the past of men at least twice the
ordinary size of modern men. he more cautious authors cate-
gorically deny the existence in the past of entire nations of giants,
admitting however some sporadic cases of gigantism, related to
glandular dysfunction or particular diseases as also observed
at present and in the archaeological record. In the rare cases
of actual gigantism, the parents of a man of disproportionate
size were oten normal or small in stature, demonstrating the
randomness of the phenomenon and totally denying the exist-
ence (even for the past) of dynasties or families with body sizes
consistently larger than normal.
he case of Filippo Bonanni (1681) is very curious, as he used
the topic of the giants as an element in support of his theory of
the inorganic origin of fossils. At the end of the seventeenth
century, the debate on the origin of fossils (organic vs. inorganic)
was still very heated (Romano 2013, 2014; Romano et al. 2015)
and Bonanni was part of the faction that preferred an inorganic
origin for these natural objects, formed, according to the author,
for spontaneous growth within the sediment. Categorically
HISTORICAL BIOLOGY 21
denying the possibility of entire nations of giants in the past,
Bonanni claims that these supposed ‘bones’ demonstrate that
‘igured rocks’ can grow spontaneously in the ground, therefore
not necessarily representing lithiied remains of real organisms.
hus, also properly rejecting the myth of the giants, regarding
the interpretation of fossil remains, Bonanni makes a real inter-
pretative step back of 200 years considering that the genius of
Leonardo da Vinci had already correctly interpreted fossils in
the iteenth century.
A common topic in many stories and fables of the giants is
the phenomenon where large skeletons instantly turned to ashes
when touched, or when simply coming into contact with the air
and the sunlight, leaving only some parts of the skull, usually
molar teeth (a suspect narrative element already highlighted
by Niccolai in 1791). his fact demonstrates irstly how these
narratives are the result of legends that, by oral transmission,
grew and magniied forging the imaginations of credulous men
(whereas maintaining some shared base elements which betray
the common origin). Secondly, it is highly suspect that the bones
most similar to human bones, such as the tibiae and some teeth,
did not turn to ash when touched (as noted by Münter 1823).
his element could reveal fraudulent intent, mostly the bad faith
of those who wanted to attribute the skeletons to giant men at all
costs, hiding or not presenting those osteological elements that
could represent contrary evidence to human attributions (for
example the diagnostic bones of the autopods).
According to the popular theory proposed by the American
paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope (1840–1897), better known
simply as ‘Cope’s rule’, taxa in diferent lineages could tend to
gradually increase in absolute size during the evolution of the
group (see Stanley 1973; Brown & Maurer 1986; Hone & Benton
2005). Many of the supporters of the existence whole races of
giants in the past have postulated an exact opposite process for
the human species, with huge and extremely robust men in the
early stages of the world (the generations immediately subse-
quent to the gigantic ‘father’ Adam) and a progressive decrease
until reaching the current mean size. In this hypothesis, the irst
generations starting with Adam were represented by huge men
but nature, while gradually losing the ‘life force’, has led to an
average continuous diminution of the human body. he theory,
supported in the past by Pliny and Lucretius (see Calmet 1730)
is reported for example in de Torquemada (1612), Moscardo
(1656); the author cites as a source Sansovino), and Antonini
(1717). Calmet (1730), while believing irmly in ancient nations
of giants, contrasts the theory of ‘species degradation’, stating that
the average height of the human body does not seem to be at all
diminished progressively over the last 3000 years. In any case it
is interesting to note that, even starting from incorrect evidence
and assumptions, the human mind oten tries to ind possible
explanations and to recognize trends, rather than postulate ad
hoc new ex novo creation of smaller men, ater the destruction
of the giants by the Great Flood. Another aspect that transpires
clearly is the strong anthropocentrism that has always character-
ized humankind. Among the many types of vertebrates to which
these gigantic bones could be referred with good evidence, in
several cases it was preferred to believe or even ‘hope’ that such
material belonged to gigantic individuals of our own species.
An interesting theme brought out by authors against the exist-
ence of populations of giants is the recourse to the supposed
22 M. ROMANO AND M. AVANZINI
‘uniformity’ of nature and of natural processes in space and
time. A concept that, once developed between the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, represents a ‘support pillar’ for the
conceptual system of authors such as Hutton and Lyell, with a
series of arguments and shades of meaning that became encased
in the classical term ‘uniformitarianism’ (see Gould 1965, 1987;
Rudwick 1972; Mayr 2011; Romano 2015).
A fairly bizarre element is that the supposed nations of
giants lived on islands (e.g. Sicily and Sardinia) where it is
demonstrated that evolution tends, on the contrary, to lead to
a decrease in average size in several large mammals (insular
dwarism, see van der Geer et al. 2013; Larramendi & Paolombo
2015). So, paradoxically, the elephant bones of Sicily that show
in a unique and exceptional way the insular evolution of an
enormous species to extremely small sizes, were instead inter-
preted as bones of giants. In this regard, the intuition of Bres
(1816) on the impossibility of a population of giants in Malta
given the small size of the island resulted in a very interesting
‘premonition’. In the case of island dwarism, in fact, one of
the possible driving factors proposed for the size reduction is
precisely the small area of the island and the scarcity of food
resources with respect to the continent of origin.
Concerning the correct interpretation of large bones, Madrisio
(1718) is one of the irst authors in Italy to question their attri-
bution to giant men, claiming that much of this material may be
referred, without problem, to elephants from the past. However,
to this correct observation he adds the fanciful hypothesis that
the bone, once buried, can increase in size over time, thereby
bringing normal human bones placed in the graves to sizes out
of the ordinary.
he real interpretative turning point takes place with the
inluential work of the Englishman Hans Sloane who in the irst
half of the eighteenth century, with advance even on the immense
Cuvier, stresses the importance of a comparative study of the
bones in various vertebrates; studies which allow scientiic con-
clusions to be made that are not based on fables, stories, or literal
citations of sacred texts. Applying wisely and in a systematic way
this method, the author easily shows how the big bones and teeth
found in sediments or in caves are nothing more than remains
of cetaceans and large quadrupeds, remarking on the major ana-
tomical diferences between humans and other known verte-
brates. Among the few precursors of Sloan, the Italian naturalist
Giovanni Ciampini in 1688, using direct comparisons with the
famous elephant exhibited in Florence in the Medicean Museum,
was able to correctly interpret the bones found at Vitorchiano
near Viterbo, initially attributed to gigantic men. his correct
interpretation is then found in Pivati (1747), Targioni Tozzetti
(1752), Poggiali (1757), Castone (in Mocchetti 1817), Zanon
(1768), Fortis (1786), Bres (1816), Pianciani (1817), Cortesi
(1819), Bossi (1819, 1829), Münter (1823), Scinà (1831), Di-Blasi
(1844), Ottavio degli Albizzi (1851), and Capellini (1873).
Despite the fact that in the nineteenth century the real
nature of the large bones found in various parts of the world
was widely and correctly understood, a ‘pockets of resistance’
to the myth of the giants persisted in Italy, as demonstrated
by the work of Antonio Bresciani of 1850, where the author
argues that Sardinia was populated originally by whole races
of giants. Although this fact may seem completely absurd,
we must remember the state of uncertainty in the first
half of the nineteenth century in the interpretations of the
remains of large mammals on Italian soil and of the depos-
its containing them. For example, in 1811, Italian authors
such as Ermenegildo Pini still interpret all the remains of
elephants or hippos as corpses transported by the waters of the
Great Flood up to Siberia, where they are found embedded in
ice (see Romano 2016b); alternatively other authors explain
the presence of elephants in Italy only by resorting to the
famous arrival of Hannibal and his army in the peninsula (see
Romano & Palombo 2017). The current absence of such large
quadrupeds where large fossil bones are found was used as an
element in favor of the giants, in a time when there was still
no idea of the great climate change, and paleobiogeographical
changes over time. On the other hand, the structure of the
continents and the sea was regarded with a fixist view for at
least another two centuries, considering that the bold theory
proposed by Wegener on plate tectonics was accepted by the
entire scientific community only in the 1970s (see Ippolito
1974; Bosellini 1978; Miller 1985; Romano & Cifelli 2015a,
2015b; Romano et al. 2016).
Far more discouraging is to see that even today, several web-
sites and television programs are devoted to the research of the
ancient ‘giants’, their residences and gigantic bones serving as
evidence of their ancient existence. he need to be amazed by
the wonderful and fantastic seems to be too deeply imprinted in
the DNA of the human kind, and dreaming of giant graves seems
to have far more success that the reading of ‘boring’ scientiic
articles about serious comparative anatomy.
Acknowledgements
Isabella Salvador is thanked for providing photographic material. he
‘Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo’ is warmly thanked for allowing the use of pho-
tographic material in this paper. he research was partially supported a
inancial received by M.R. from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation
(Soja Kovalevskaja-Award to Jörg Fröbisch ‘Early Evolution and
Diversiication of Synapsida’ of the German Federal Ministry of Education
and Research). he study was conducted within the ‘Geoitaliani Project’ of
the Società Geologica Italiana.
Disclosure statement
No potential conlict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
he research was partially supported a inancial received by M.R. from the
Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation (Soja Kovalevskaja-Award to Jörg
Fröbisch ‘Early Evolution and Diversiication of Synapsida’ of the German
Federal Ministry of Education and Research). he study was conducted
within the ‘Geoitaliani Project’ of the Società Geologica Italiana.
ORCID
Marco Romano http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7629-3872
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