Matteo de' Medici served with some credit as a general in the Thirty Years' War, during which he assembled that remarkable collection of ivory ornaments which is one of the minor marvels of the Pitti Palace collection. As well he formed an equally extraordinary collection of human deformities including a live hideous dwarf with 'thinly scattered tusks for teeth' and an appetite so enormous that he could gobble up forty cucumbers, thirty figs and a water melon before a massive dinner. 

"The Rise and Fall of The House of Medici", by Christopher Hibbert