Vohu Manu

Florence became the centre of culture in Italy and some say the world in the 15th and 16th centuries mostly because of it´s long tradition of hosting the Ugly Baby Show.

The Ugly Baby Show had little prominence before this because few people knew of it outside of Florence. This was until the marketing geniuses in the Medici family hit upon the idea of creating portraits of each year´s winners. Before the next year they´d parade the portraits around the local towns, and crowds would flock to see the competition. Soon people were bringing hideous babies from all over Italy to compete, and tourists would journey as far as from Iran, Ethiopia and India.

Here are a few of the many, many examples of the winners.


The prizes varied over the years, but traditional prizes would include gold, frankincense and myrrh.

This is Trajan's Column, to celebrate his conquest of the Dacians. And that statue at the top? Trajan of course? No! It's St. Peter. Not only didn't he conquer the Dacians I bet he never even saw a Dacian.

Just around the corner is the Pantheon, a huge dome built by the Romans to house shrines to the seven major gods of their religion, who the planets in our solar system were named after. You'd think there'd be a nice statue of Mercury in there, perhaps one of Jupiter. Nope, more mooochers moved in and the current tenants are Mary and all the Martyr Saints.

I tell you this has become a bad neighbourhood since all these out of towners have shown up.