Natalis
Comes, Mythologia Padua 1616
a
selection of images
This is a highly influential and slightly dotty illustrated text, entitled
"Ten books of explanations of fables, clearly demonstrating that
all the doctrines of Natural and Moral Philosophy were contained in the
fables of the ancients...." Ernst Gombrich in a short essay, "The
Subject of Poussin's Orion" ( Symbolic Images; Studies in
the Art of the Renaissance , Phaidon London 1972) writes of the
publication as a "bewildering farrago of pedantic erudition and uncritical
compilation...." p.120. Gombrich frowns on Comes' conceptual gymnastics,
but praises Poussin's achievements in transmuting the imagery into something
fully integrated within his painting of Orion.
The publication, in ten books, begins with an index of mythic narratives
and then a separate index of names of protagonists. The folding engraving
(top row, right) then gives a hierarchy of mythic figures. Page size is
16 x 26 cms. The publication is generously supplied with vignettes and
ornaments throughout.
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