Elizabeth I’s manuscript copy of Pierre Boaistuau’s *Histoires Prodigieuses* (1559) — The Public Domain Review

Beelzebub, Boaistuau claims, incarnated in two places on earth. First he ruled over the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, where he pretended to give oracles in exchange for the sacrifices of virgins. In Boaistuau’s own time, however, the Devil was even more shameless: he had revealed himself to the good people of Calicut (now Kozhikode, in southwestern India), whom he had deceived into treating him as a god. For this information, Boaistuau quotes Ludovico di Varthema, a Bolognese merchant who had traveled to Calicut in 1505. Di Varthema had seen (and misinterpreted) some Hindu temples, and his travelogue was illustrated in a 1515 German edition with woodcuts by Jörg Breu the Elder (1475-1537). Breu has chicken legs image of the Hindu god (35r) was a clear source of inspiration for Boaistuau’s own illustration. The latter, however, went further and added the monstrous birth of a lesser demon emerging from between the devil’s thighs.