Frank Lentini: Story of the Man With Three Legs
In today’s video, we’ll be talking about a man from Italy who had four legs and two genitals and was liked by people as an artist
Francesco Lentini was born in rural Sicily on May 18th, 1889, in Italy. His parents were simple parents: father Natale Lentini and mother Giovanna Falco. But, as soon as he was born, everybody noticed something was different. More specifically, Francesco had three legs, two functioning sets of genitals, four feet (the fourth, incompletely formed, was attached to the calf of his third leg), and sixteen toes. Without any doubt, he wasn’t like any other baby. How was that possible? Right from the beginning, his fellow townspeople, with a mix of fear, derision and superstition. Some researchers have found the old, original medical records. And, according to the doctor, Francesco had a twin who didn’t develop fully during the pregnancy and his upper body was mutilated. Hence, the lower part of the body did develop, and it united to Francesco’hip, almost like a tail. The family, superstitious like many others at the time, didn’t take this as a good omen. On the contrary, his parents were ashamed.
So, they started looking for a way to make their son “normal.” Relatives remember that his father did everything he could to try to find a solution. There was a surgeon capable of amputating the unnecessary appendage. But the specialist did not want to take the risk, believing that the consequences could lead to paralysis if not the child’s death.Francesco and his dad embarked on a journey to reach Boston on June 28th, 1889. At the time, the newborn was barely one-month old. These were the decades of mass emigration to the United States, a place that many poor Italians considered the land of promise and possibilities. Francesco quickly became Frank Lentini and, in the new, promised continent, his family didn’t have any reason to be ashamed. The young boy from Italy soon became a sort of myth, something unbelievable that people paid to see. Everyone heard about the boy with three legs and four feet and, of course, everyone wanted to see him. He even joined the circus and toured the world.
In 1907, in Boston, Frank married a very beautiful actress, Teresa Murray, with whom he had four children: Josephine, Natale, Frank and James, none of them had extra limbs. Frank became the star of circus freaks, running, jumping over ropes, riding bicycles and skating. He learnt English, and was presented as kind, educated, noble, and self-deprecating. His deformity, which he exhibited now without any problem, was his Fortune, and he joked that he was the only man who didn’t need a chair, because he could always use his third leg as a stool. He also smiled when he said that he always bought two pairs of shoes, but that he gave the spare one, a left foot, to a friend who had lost his right leg. His career lasted until the 1950s, until he decided to retire to Florida.
