From the Vaults of the Unhinged: The Eye That Escaped the Body
Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett

From the Vaults of the Unhinged: The Eye That Escaped the Body

In 1882, Odilon Redon released a lithograph that still feels eerily modern: The Eye, Like a Strange Balloon, Mounts Toward Infinity.

At first glance, it is deceptively simple. A single eye floats upward over a darkened sea, tethered to a small basket that resembles a skull or severed head. There is no horizon, no destination, no explanation. Only ascent.

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From the Vaults of the Unhinged: Fortunio Liceti’s Book of Monsters
Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett

From the Vaults of the Unhinged: Fortunio Liceti’s Book of Monsters

In 1616, Italian physician and philosopher Fortunio Liceti published De monstrorum caussis, natura, et differentiis libri duo (On the Causes, Nature and Differences of Monsters, in Two Books). The first edition was largely text-based, but by the time the second edition appeared in Padua in 1634 (often dated 1633)—published by Paulus Frambottus—the work had transformed into something extraordinary: a quarto volume of over 260 pages, illustrated with a gallery of the grotesque.

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