Noble Blood - The "Wild" Nobleman of French Court

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Petrus Gonsalvus was born with a rare genetic condition that meant he was entirely covered in hair. His life took him to French court, where he lived as an oddity, but also, as a nobleman, husband, and father. [NOTE: Listen to Courtney's podcast The Craft Lab on Apple or Substack!]  Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon— Noble Blood merch— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. The year was 1588, and the soon-to-be parents were eagerly awaiting their child's birth, with excitement and trepidation. In 1588, you couldn't blame any couple for feeling nervous about childbirth, but Petrus and Catherine, the parents, had bigger worries even than getting through the birth with mother and baby alive. Catherine was a perfectly ordinary woman, but the father was the French court's most unusual-looking member. The question everyone, including the parents, wanted to know, what sort of child this baby would be. As soon as he or she was born, they would know if the wrath

of God or the superstition of myth might be waiting for them. As her labor progressed, Catherine gasped with pain. She gritted her teeth, squeezed her eyes, and focused only on the immediate task ahead of her. As the contractions overtook her, more and more heavily and frequently, she did what any mother of any child does. She pushed. And then the baby came, crowning with hair at the top of her head, a new baby girl. But no one had been too terribly concerned about what the baby's sex would be. Catherine craned her neck, trying to see the baby, exhausted, no doubt, but still trying to sense the feeling in the room. Even through the haze of pain and hormones,

Catherine must have felt the energy in the room shift, because the baby was born with hair, not just on her head, but cascading from the entirety of her face and body. No, this isn't a scene from the new off-brand Wicked spinoff with a child magically born hairy instead of green. It was the reality of one. one of the most unusual families ever to be received in royal court.

The brand-new baby girl was named Madeline Gonzalez, and within moments, those in the room knew that she, like her father, was what was then called a hirsuit, a rare person who was almost entirely covered in hair. The girl's father, Petrus Gonzalez, was one of the most famous haresuits of his day. His entire face was covered in long, silky hair. His forehead and cheeks were covered.

On his face, the only skin you could see was the pink of his lips. Today, we have a scientific understanding of the genetic condition that causes excessive hair growth, called congenital hypertricosis. But in the 16th century, Petrus was considered a, quote, wild man. But the strangest, most interesting thing about Petrus wasn't his medical abnormality. It was that beneath it, he had been raised up in the court of Henry II to read Latin literature, to wear noble clothing, to have a noble bearing and manners, and to receive military training. You would have no doubt, if you looked at his face at the time of his daughter's birth, that he was a, quote, wild man, yes,

But you would also not have any doubt if you looked at his clothing and manners and listened to his voice that he was a nobleman. But how did the man covered in hair, the wild men of Tenorife, the family legally considered somewhere between human and beast, and the only family depicted in a 16th century natural history of beasts, become a favorite of nobility? and how did they spend their lives in the French noble court? That's the sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes fairy tale-like story of Petrus Gonzalves. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Petrus Gonzalves was born in 1538 on Tenerife, the largest of the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands. Just off the northwest coast of Africa, that island is known as the island. of the blessed. The weather is beautiful all year long and the oceans sparkle. But Petrus was not

among the islands blessed, at least not as a young boy. He was born with an unusual condition that meant he was entirely covered in hair. It was not an abnormality he could hide. Inches of silky hair extended from every part of his face except for his mouth. From the time he was a child, Petrus expected everyone he met to stop and stare, no doubt wondering, is this a boy or some sort of animal. By the time Petrus was born, the Canary Islands had been conquered by the Kingdom of Castile, now a part of Spain. The indigenous people of the island, called Guanches, were subject to a controversial enslavement, controversial because many were Christians, after all. Whether or not Petrus, probably born with the name Pedro, was actually a guancha himself, is a matter of historical speculation.

He may have been, or he may have been descended from Portuguese or Spanish colonists. Because of his strange appearance, many Europeans from whom we get our history, assumed that he must have been a native. Some even speculated that he must have been a member of some other race of hairy people who live. lived somewhere on the island. They were wrong. We don't know how Petrus inherited his condition and whether others in his family had it before him, but there are no known records of anyone else on the island with the look of this wildman. Little Petrus stood alone. The way he stood out, and was quite literally dehumanized, put him at very high risk of winding up enslaved. But history has a funny way of doing the unexpected, and Petrus happened to be born during a very particular period during a very particular cultural trend.

At this time, there was a courtly interest in human, quote, specimens and marvels. It was considered fashionable, a mark of high social status, to have dwarves at court, along with all manner of, people with mental and or physical conditions that they at court found fascinating. There was, at this time, both a fear and fascination with a medieval mythical figure known as the so-called Wild Man of the Woods, a man covered in hair like an unknowable mythological sater of the forest. Renaissance artists like Albrecht der were known to paint these wild men into German coats of arms. Medical science and popular belief offered many explanations for abnormal births, ranging from God's wrath to an errant mixture of the male and female,

quote, seed that was believed to constitute human beings. One particularly popular theory at this time for both physicians and common folk alike, centered on the idea that a mother's imagination, her thoughts, beliefs, and fantasies during pregnancy, could shape the body of her unborn child, often to disastrous effect. In his 1573 book on surgery, Ambrose Paray concluded that at least one her suit child

came to be because, quote, the mother had looked too intently at the figure of St. John wearing a fur skin, an image that was tied at the bottom of her bed while she was conceiving the child. Of course, today we would consider these individuals neither monsters nor marvels, but merely humans with genetic differences. But for Petrus, the courtly interest in, quote, human marvels, saved him from a possible life of enslavement. He was a hirsuit, which made him too unique, too unusual, too valuable to be a common slave.

Of course, this would eventually lead to a different sort of loss of autonomy, but one, I imagine, was far, far more comfortable, physically. And so Petrus found himself on a ship bound for the European mainland. He did not speak any language that the Venetian ambassador to Spain, who's our first, our source here could understand. Petrus was considered something between human and magnificent zoo specimen. Traveling alongside several parrots, Petrus was brought first to Venice, then to France. He was presented as a diplomatic gift for the new King Henry II, who became King of France on his 28th birthday in 1547. At this point, Petrus was just 10 years old. He must have been both intrigued and terrified looking around the French court.

He had never before left the gentle sea breeze of his island back home. He didn't know what this foreign king intended to do with him. Indeed, the new king did not at first know himself. He had never seen someone like Little Petrus, presented to him like a gift as valuable as foreign jewels. No one at court had ever seen anyone like Petrus. Legend has it that court doctors inspected the little boy, wondering if he would open his mouth and make the growling sounds of an animal. But he was only a little boy and a little boy who did not speak the language of the people around him. Maybe King Henry was curious.

Maybe he was running an experiment to see whether this little wild boy could grow up to be a nobleman. Maybe he saw something of himself in this little boy. After all, when Henry was around Petrus's age, he had been held hostage in Spain in exchange for the release of his father. Maybe in this little wild boy, Henry saw an image of himself caught between Spain and France. But for whatever reason, or maybe just because he thought he was interesting, Henry II made an incredible decision about the little Hursuit boy's future. He decided to educate him. Pedro Gonzales learned Latin and adopted the Latin name Petrus Gonzalves. He proved able to read Latin even better than most of the courtiers in Henry's courts.

Petrus was given military training. He wore gold-lined vestments fit for a noble. He sat for portraits for artists far and wide. It was never quite clear, or at least it's not quite clear. now, legally speaking, whether he was even considered fully human, but he was certainly educated in the manners, not just of a human, but of a nobleman. And so Petrus Gonzalves, the Canary Island boy covered in hair, grew up in the way of an educated nobleman in King Henry II's French court. In 1559, when Petrus was 22, he was hairy as ever, but now fully out of

outfitted as a nobleman, and the first serious risk to his position took place in the form of a calamity. King Henry II, who had ensured Petrus's protection and education, died. He was mortally injured in a jousting tournament when he was just 40 years old. Petrus's future was thrown into doubt. Yes, King Henry had treated him as a nobleman rather than a wild man, whether due to his. whether due to human empathy or as a proto-science experiment, but Henry's young son Francis, the second, the new king, just 15, could easily make a different choice when it came to Petrus's fate.

Petrus's life at court, his life itself, could be over with a single decree. But fortunately for Petrus, King Henry's widow and the new king's mother, Catherine DiMedici, decided that Petrus's courtly life should be maintained. Catherine would be an incredibly stable patroness. Over the next 30 years, as King Francis died and gave way to his brother, King Charles the 9th, who died and gave way to their brother, King Henry III, Catherine Demodici remained in power and Petrus remained at court.

In 1573, when Petrus was 36 years old, Catherine de Medici made a decision. She determined that if Petrus was to remain essentially a nobleman at court, he had to do what nobleman did, which was get married. Why did Catherine make that decision? Here we have a little bit more evidence. Catherine had a specific interest in the, quote, human marvels at court. She had already arranged for two dwarves to marry to see if they would create a new breed of, of humans. In other words, it was sport, not kindness. That said, given the alternatives available, living as a pseudo-mascott figure at court for the amusement of the royal family, wasn't the worst life available to someone who fit outside of the mainstream. It's also

possible that Catherine had just taken a liking to Petrus, and for whatever reason, she decided that she wanted his bride to be one with a typical amount of hair. Although we can only speculate whether that was out of kindness or curiosity or just the fact that her suits were incredibly rare. But Catherine's determination that he would have a typically haired bride created a new problem for Petrus. The court wanted to find him a wife. But who would want to marry a man who was thought of

as a beast. The answer was a young woman, also named Catherine. A quick aside about vocabulary that I'm going to use. In the story of Petrus Gonzalez, we wind up using words like her suit and glabrous, glabrous meaning smooth. So Catherine would be Petrus's glabrous bride. We can't know for certain what Catherine and Petrus might have been thinking when they first met one another. Maybe, Catherine saw some kindness in his eyes from the start. Maybe she was quietly afraid. Maybe he was apologetic about his condition, or maybe he stood proud. What we do know is that, to the surprise of the court, the couple settled into a married life that was shockingly normal. The two seemed to genuinely love each other, and soon enough, Catherine was pregnant. Of course,

then there was no understanding of the science of genetics. Nobody in the 1500s was learning about Mendel and fruit flies in high school biology class because Mendel wouldn't be born for another few hundred years. So Petrus and Catherine didn't know what to expect from the union of a pursuit man and a glabrous woman. Would their baby follow its mother or its father? Would it somehow be a combination of both, or would it be born with some other unknowable supernatural condition entirely? The moment of birth arrived. Catherine went into labor and Petrus waited with bated breath to discover the fate of his child. And as they discovered, the baby was a girl, and like her father, she was covered in hair. We don't know a lot about Petrus in his own words. Most of what we know. We know. We

comes from the paintings that curious artists made of him and his family, and from the records that curious medical scientists made of their visits to him. We can imagine him stoically accepting his fate, or we can imagine that he was quietly bitter about it. We can imagine that he was proud of his own successes and grateful for the life he got at French court, or we can imagine he was resentful of the impossibility that he would be treated like he was. an ordinary person, resentful that his life was as a curiosity. We do have one speech attributed to him by Joris Hofnegel, who included the Gonzalves family as the only humans in his four-volume collection of natural history. In this speech, Petrus calls himself, quote,

The foster child of the King of France. Tenerife brought me forth, hair all over my body, a marvelous work of nature. God was moved to give me a wife of excellent figure, as well as our marriage bed's dearest token. It pleases nature to distinguish, whereas some children repeat in figure and color their mother, others follow their father in their hairy vestments. Indeed, Patrice and Catherine had seven children together, three girls, all her suit, and four boys, two each her suit and glabrous. If the above speech really was delivered by Petrus, it seems he saw his life and family as a blessing of God and nature.

But, of course, no matter how blessed, no situation lasts forever. The Gonzalves family had long held a place at the French court, but it was always a place that was contingent on the good graces of those in power. And in 1589, Petrus's longtime protector, Catherine. Catherine de Medici died. That same year, her son, King Henry III, was assassinated. For the Gonzalves family, that meant that they no longer had anyone really protecting their position in France. And so, for the second time in his life, Petrus Gonzalves was forced to say goodbye to the place that had been his home. The family left France. They moved between courts in Austria and Rome, and ultimately wound up in Parma, present-day Italy. Initially, under the protection

of the Duke of Parma, they received another courtly type of life there. They were given a servant and a government grant. One of their haresuit sons got married to a glabrous woman in a ceremony at the church. They all seemed to be having a relatively happy life. Much of what we know about the Gonzalves family today comes from art history, as I mentioned. In fact, the family's congenital condition, hypertricosis, is sometimes known as Ambrus syndrome, after the many Gonzalves family portraits held in Austria's Ambrus Castle. A number of the portraits and paintings depict Petrus and his daughters, all with their faces covered in hair and all wearing their noble finery. The portraits of his daughter Antoinette aroused particular interest among art historians.

Looking sweet, she was painted by Lavinia Fontana, one of the first professional female painters of the Renaissance. In the paintings we still have today, Petrus's wife Catherine is sometimes depicted, hair only on her head. Her arms serenely around the shoulders of the family she seems to truly love. In 1617, it's believed Petrus attended his grandson's christening. He likely died the next year, aged 81. We know that at least one of his married children had Hursuit children of their own. But after that, we don't have further records. The family lived, died, and faded from history.

Maybe the genetic odds meant that the condition disappeared. Maybe the family line at some point came to an end. In either case, the family's fate has dissolved away from the history books. They leave us a legacy of portraits and of an unlikely, even fairy tale-like story of rising through the noble ranks. But this is also a story of gaps and speculation. Petrus Gonsalves was treated as an oddity and curiosity in his time, which made him famous. That is the only reason we still know of him today.

And so it's unfortunate that so little of his story is left to us, because now, trying to understand him and trying to write about him in a nuanced way, we're left with little more than the simple notion that he existed, that a, quote, wild man was brought to French court. And isn't that interesting? That's the story of Petrus Gonzalves, the noble wildman. But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear more about the famous fairy tale that the Gonsalves family may have inspired.

What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, And dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah.

He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that.

There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodem. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Farrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day.

And I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.

If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. If the story of Petrus Gonsalves, the, quote, beast-like man and his lovely wife, Catherine,

reminded you of a fairy tale you've heard before, you wouldn't be the first. Many have suggested that the unlikely love between Petrus and Catherine Gonsalves was the real-life origin of beauty and the beast. That fairy tale was first written by French author Gabrielle-Souin-Barre des Ville-Nu, and published in France in 1740. a little over a century after Petrus's death. A real-life origin for the famous fairy tale does seem plausible and even kind of romantic.

It's the fun fact that people love to repeat, particularly on the internet. But did Villeneuve know about the Gonzalves family? We can't be sure, but unfortunately, it's probably unlikely. There's no evidence for it, and, in fact, her written version describes the beast as having scales and a trunk like an elephant, which doesn't align with the look of Petrus. But if you are one of the many who wish the Gonzalves's had inspired beauty and the Beast,

no need to give up. In the famous Jean-Cocktoe movie adaptation from 1946, the Beast looks strikingly similar to a famous full-length portrait of Petrault. Petrus in noble robes. What else looks a lot like that portrait? The image of the beast you probably have in your head from the 1991 Disney cartoon. So Petrus Gonsolves may have not directly inspired the literary version of the story, but he and his wife Catherine, who built a loving family together despite the expectations of others, may live on in the fairy tale memories of children everywhere, having inspired the beast's physical representation.

Thank you for listening. One quick note of housekeeping before we go. If you're interested in reading and writing, Noble Blood staff writer Courtney Sender has a podcast newsletter and writers group called The Craft Lab, which features weekly craft readings and discussions of the greats. Courtney has been a professor of creative writing for 15 years, and now she's giving what you can't get in school, the inspiration, motivation, and passion you need to energize your writing and help bring your projects to life. So if that's something that sounds

interesting to you, we're linking to her podcast in this episode description. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk with supervising producer Rima Il Kali, and executive producers Aaron Manky, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there.

Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Yeah. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.