The natural and social world is a permanent source of wonder, whether through the regularity of its order or through the irruption of the unusual. These two sides go hand in hand: the extra-ordinary breaks the usual landscape of the world, whilst simultaneously confirming it.

Throughout Europe’s cultural history, monsters were the most remarkable figures of wonder. As the etymology reveals (from the Latin monitum, which means warning), monsters have the role of drawing attention, of revealing. Their meaning is not limited to their unusual shape, with monsters also configuring a sign of something unknown, or perhaps of a future event. Their peculiar physiognomy is the result of a profound change in an animal species or of the combination of elements belonging to different species.

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