Giacomo and Giovanni Battista Tocci were born in northern Italy on October 4, 1877. The children were separate above the waist, but shared an abdomen, pelvis, and two legs. When they were just one month old, they were given by their parents to doctors at the Royal Academy of Medicine in Turin to be studied and exhibited. During the period in which they were exhibited, the Tocci brothers were among the most dramatic and well-known sights in Europe and the United States. They were touted as the "Blended Twins" or the "Two-Headed Boy."
Because of the severe nature of their connection, the Tocci brothers never learned to walk without assistance. As in the case of some conjoined twins, each boy controlled only one leg, and they never were able to coordinate their movements. They were able to write (one was left-handed, the other right-handed) and each had artistic talents. After twenty difficult years touring, the twins retired to a secluded home near Venice, Italy. They married sisters and lived another forty-three years in seclusion.
