{"id":1475,"date":"2024-11-06T00:15:52","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T23:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/?p=1475"},"modified":"2025-04-08T12:11:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T10:11:31","slug":"beauty-and-the-beast-a-family-of-hairy-wildlings-at-the-farnese-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/beauty-and-the-beast-a-family-of-hairy-wildlings-at-the-farnese-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Beauty and the Beast: A Family of \u201cHairy Wildlings\u201d at the Farnese Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the tranquil castle of Capodimonte, known as “La Rocca” and nestled on the serene shores of a lake, the peculiar story of Pedro Gonz\u00e1lez came to an end during the years of the Farnese dynasty. But who was he? Pedro was a Spanish noble, born in 1537 on Tenerife, a newly conquered island in the Canary Archipelago. At the age of ten, like many indigenous people resisting Spanish rule, Pedro was captured and enslaved. Eventually, he found himself in the hands of French corsairs, who presented him as an \u201cexotic treasure\u201d to celebrate the marriage of King Henry II of France to Catherine de\u2019 Medici. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon seeing this young boy, covered in thick hair reaching nearly four inches in length, the French king thought he was gazing upon a creature half-man, half-beast. But in reality, Pedro suffered from hypertrichosis, a rare genetic condition that causes excessive hair growth, giving an almost animal-like appearance. Rather than reject him, the king took Pedro into his court, seeing it as a challenge to \u201ccivilize\u201d this strange \u201cwild child.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pedro, who proved to be intelligent and quick-witted, soon mastered French, Italian, the humanities, and even Latin, astonishing the nobles of Europe. Nicknamed the \u201csauvage du Roi\u201d (the King\u2019s wild man), he was even granted the title of \u201cDon,\u201d though at court he was often affectionately called \u201cBarbet\u201d due to his resemblance to the king\u2019s beloved dog. Pedro inspired not pity or revulsion but curiosity and admiration, with many aristocrats competing for his company, treating him as a rare and exotic gem of the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her own particular way, Catherine de\u2019 Medici took a keen interest in Pedro\u2019s future. For reasons of curiosity, entertainment, or perhaps something darker, she decided he should be wed and found him a bride in her beautiful young lady-in-waiting, Catherine Raffelin. Though the poor girl reportedly fainted upon seeing her husband for the first time, their marriage unexpectedly blossomed into a happy union. Together, Don Petrus Gonsalvus (as he was now known) and Catherine had seven children, five of whom inherited their father\u2019s condition. Their portraits, featuring Pedro\u2019s signature \u201cwild look\u201d refined by the elegance of a gentleman, soon became sought-after curiosities across European courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pedro served at the French court for forty-four years as \u201csommelier de panneterie bouche,\u201d a prestigious role assisting with royal dining, but in 1580, he left for the court of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma. A few years later, after Margaret\u2019s death, the Gonz\u00e1lez family moved to Parma, to the court of Ranuccio Farnese. Though they were honored guests, Pedro struggled with the lack of purpose in his new role, feeling like a mere curiosity. After a brief post as estate manager for the Farnese lands in Collecchio, he eventually moved his family to Capodimonte, where he spent his final years as the wardrobe manager for the Farnese family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pedro passed away quietly in 1618 at the age of eighty, far from the notoriety that had once defined his life. His wife Catherine died in Capodimonte seven years later. Parish records detail the family\u2019s various milestones, including births, marriages, and other events involving the Gonz\u00e1lez descendants, known affectionately by the locals as \u201cthe Hairy Ones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pedro\u2019s son Henri, Italianized as Arrigo, became a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese and took up the unusual sideline of village moneylending, supplementing his income with small loans and less-than-legal dealings. He even found a place in art history as the subject of Agostino Carracci\u2019s famous painting “Arrigo peloso, Pietro Matto, Amon Nano et altre bestie”, now housed in Naples. The other Gonz\u00e1lez children gradually faded into history, leaving little trace of their lives and legacies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of Pedro and Catherine has long fascinated people, giving rise to the enduring tale of “Beauty and the Beast”, a legend that began circulating in Europe in the late sixteenth century. Though likely inspired by the real-life figure of Gonsalvus, “Beauty and the Beast” finds its roots in the ancient Greek and Roman tales of transformation, notably in “Metamorphoses” by Apuleius, where a beautiful young woman is forced to marry a creature only to discover he is, in truth, a refined prince. Recently, Pedro\u2019s story was recounted in the 2013 documentary film “Gonsalvus \u2013 Die wahre Geschichte von Die Sch\u00f6ne und Das Biest”, directed by Julian Roman P\u00f6lsler and filmed in part in Capodimonte.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the tranquil castle of Capodimonte, known as “La Rocca” and nestled on the serene shores of a lake, the peculiar story of Pedro Gonz\u00e1lez came to an end during the years of the Farnese dynasty. But who was he? Pedro was a Spanish noble, born in 1537 on Tenerife, a newly conquered island in […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curiosity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1475"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2153,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions\/2153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitcapodimonte.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}