A requerimiento de los monarcas, durante los siglos
XVI y XVII la corte española estaba poblada de bufones y seres con
todo tipo de rarezas: inválidos, deficientes mentales, mujeres gordas
y barbudas, enanos, locos y deformes. Eran llamados «sabandijas
del palacio», y su fealdad se contraponía a la belleza de sus señores,
que de este modo quedaba realzada. La favorita de Carlos II el Hechizado fue la burgalesa Eugenia Martínez Vallejo, apodada la monstrua
por su deformidad y gordura, que derivaban de un padecimiento
entonces desconocido, el síndrome de Prader-Willi.
At the request of the Spanish monarchs, during the
16th and 17th centuries the Spanish Court was full of jesters and
beings with every tipe of oddities: disabled people, challenged people,
fat and bearded women, dwarves, insane and deformed people.
They were called “the vermins of the Palace”, and their ugliness
contrasted with the beauty of their lords, which was highlighted
that way. The favourite of Charles II, the Bewitched was the burgalese
Eugenia Martínez Vallejo, nicknamed the Monster because of
her deformity and fatness, which derived from a then unknown illness,
the Prader-Willi syndrome.
