468J Natalis CONTI (1520-1582)

Natalis Comitis Mythologiae sive explicationis fabvlarvm libri decem : 

In Quibus Omnia Prope Naturalis Et Moralis Philosophiae dogmata in Veterum Fabulis contenta fuisse perspicuè demonstratur ; Opus cuiusvis Facultatis studiosis perutile ac propé necessarium. Accessit G. Linocerii Mvsarvm Mythologia, & Anonymi Observationum in totam de Dijs Gentium narrationem Libellvs. Adiectae sunt insuper novissimae huic, post Germanicam & Gallicam, Editioni elegantissimae Deorum imagines, & eruditissimae Mythologiae M. Antonij Tritonij Vtinensis. Omnia summo studio, & exquisito labore denuòemendata.

Patavii : Ex Typographia Pauli Frambotti, 1637. Price $3,200

Quarto 22 x 16v cm. Signatures: [A]4, a-b4, c2,[folding chart] A-Z4,Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Zzz4 Aaaa-Pppp4, Qqqq2 (complete) , Bound in modern full vellum over boards, with a pencil note on the front paste down ” From the library of the late Cardinal Albani, sold at Messrs Sotheby’s in the spring of 1868″ Fifth edition, the first edition of this work was published in Venzia in 1568, several editions followed confirming the great success of the book, but only starting from the fourth edition of 1616, was the work was published with the rich illustrations that we also find in this edition. Illustrates with the zodiacal signs, depicting the celestial order as well as 106 woodcuts in the text.

In Addition to Conti’s work there are additional writings:

Notae ad mythologicos hosce libros Friderici Sylbvrghii. (Sylburg) -p.557-558
Viuariensis mythologiae musarum libellus / Geofredi Linocerii p.559-578 –
Notae. Ad mythologiam musarum F.S.(Sylburg) p.579-583 — . Veteres philosophorum ethnicorum de dijs sententiae Gregorio Giraldi-– p.584-587– .
In mythologiam N. Comitis observationum libellus anonymvs lectori — -p.588-614.
Mythologia — / M. Antonii Tritonii Vtinensis. 1-55

Natale CONTI He was probably born in Milan in 1520, where his family, of Roman origin, had moved. Child, he was then brought by his parents to Venice. The only sure testimony about the place of his birth is an observation by Conti himself. In his Historiae (l. IX, 1581, c. 182), after praising the courtesy of the Milanese, he adds: neque illud dico, quod our eo migrarint Roma antiquitus, unde propter bella postea Venetias, cum essem parvulus profugerunt, sed quia res docet ita esse. In his works, Conti constantly defines himself as Venetus, and this is what Foscarini considers him (p. 303), without denying on the other hand his birth in Milan by chance, following the Picinellis (p. 325). According to the most recent biographer, Cranz (p. 31), Conti, from a Venetian family, would have been born and died in Milan.

The biographical information concerning him is extremely scarce, connected with the publication of his writings which allow us to glimpse, moreover, an accurate literary preparation. In the second half of the sixteenth century, he collected the extensive mythological and legendary material collected during his research in a large encyclopedia, dedicated to the French king Charles IX, published in Venice in 1568 under the title Mythologiae sive explicationes fabularum libri X. Lo Schoell (p. 27) and Guillon (p. 121) cite a first edition. of 1551, Tiraboschi (p. 843) one of 1561-64: if there really were, these editions can presumably be considered drafts of the Venetian one of 1568. It is a mythological repertoire, compiled on Latin and Greek sources, as consulted directly , such as second-hand, which Conti, according to what he wrote at the end of the work, was induced to publish, against his will, by Renaldo Ferreri and Valerio Faenzi. As Fabricius already observed (p. 330), the assumption of Mythology was to demonstrate that almost all the principles of natural and moral philosophy are contained in ancient fables. Mythology had some success as a cultural and school textbook, as the numerous reprints demonstrate. A French translation was also published with the title of Mythologie, c’est à dire explication de fables, containing les généalogies des dieux, les céremonies de leurs sacrifices, leurs gestes, adventures, amours et presque tous les précepts de la philosophie naturelle et morale ., par J. de Montlyard, Lyon 1604, 1607, 1612; Rouen 1611; Paris 1627 (revised by J. Baudoin).

In recognizing that the Italian mythologists exercised during the century. XVI in Europe an effective dominance, Schoell makes the history of the editions of Mythology, of which the second (Venice 1581) was very popular in France (as evidenced by the wide use that P. Bayle made in his famous Dictionnaire) and in Germany for the interest aroused by the moral interpretation of myths. The English poet George Chapman, attracted by the possibility of explaining pagan legends historically and naturalistically, made extensive use of the manual of C. in his poems The Shadow of Night (1594) and Andromeda liberata (1614). The fortune of the Mythologia del Conti in the schools, in competition with the Historia. de deis by Lilio G. Girardi (1548), lasted until 1700, when his manual was supplemented by more modern and scientific works.

Natale Conti or Latin Natalis Comes, also Natalis de Comitibus and French Noël le Comte (1520–1582) was an Italian mythographer, poet, humanist and historian.
His major work Mythologiae was first published in Venice in 1567 and became a standard source for classical mythology in later Renaissance Europe.


Conti believed that the ancient poets had meant for their presentations of myths to be read as allegory, and accordingly constructed intricate genealogical associations within which he found layers of meaning. Since Conti was convinced that the lost philosophy of Classical Antiquity could be recovered through understanding these allegories,

“The most apocryphical and outlandish versions of classical and pseudo-classical tales,” notes Ernst Gombrich, “are here displayed and commented upon as the ultimate esoteric wisdom.”


Taking a Euhemeristic approach, Conti thought that the characters in myth were idealized human beings, and that the stories contained philosophical insights syncretized through the ages and veiled so that only “initiates” would grasp their true meaning. His interpretations were often shared by other Renaissance writers, notably by Francis Bacon in his long-overlooked De Sapientia Veterum, 1609. In some cases, his interpretation might seem commonplace even in modern mythology: for Conti, the centaur represents “man’s dual nature,” both animal passions and higher intellectual faculties. Odysseus, for instance, becomes an Everyman whose wanderings represent a universal life cycle:
Conti creates an ahistorical mythology that he hopes will reconnect his readers to their own primordial archetypal hero. He assumed that his readers wanted to see their reflections in the literary mirror of the archetypal Greek hero, but when gazing into such a ‘mirror,’ the reflection must be divested of its particular ethnicity and historicity. For Conti, myth was a literary artifact on which the mythographer could freely use his imagination to reinvent the literal subject matter into a kind of ‘metatext,’ which the interpreter reconstructs into his idealized self-imaging text.


Despite or because of its eccentricities, the Mythologiae inspired the use of myth in various art forms. A second edition, printed in 1568 and dedicated to Charles IX, was popular in France, where it served as a source for the Ballet comique de la Reine (1581), part of wedding festivities at court. The Ballet was a musical drama with dancing set in an elaborate recreation of the island of Circe. The surviving text associated with the performance presents four allegorical expositions, based explicitly on Comes’ work: physical or natural, moral, temporal, and logical or interpretive.
The allegorization of myth was criticized during the Romantic era; Benedetto Croce said that medieval and Renaissance literature and art presented only the “impoverished shell of myth.” The 16th-century mythological manuals of Conti and others came to be regarded as pedantic and lacking aesthetic or intellectual coherence.
Nor were criticisms of Conti confined to later times: Joseph Scaliger, twenty years his junior, called him “an utterly useless man” and advised Setho Calvisio not to use him as a source.


Conti, whose family (according to his own statement) originated in Rome, was born in Milan. He described himself as “Venetian” because his working life was spent in Venice.
Interesting and precious sixteenth-century collection of works of a mythological nature: ten books on the mythology of Natale Conti, a booklet by Gofredo Linocerio on the muses of mythology; some pages by Gregorio Giraldo with the judgments of old philosophers about the gods and an anonymous book of observations on the mythological work of the author and finally a work by Antonio Tritone. Natale Conti was a Venetian scholar and historian who owed his fortune to the publication of the work, offered here, which influenced all mythography from the late Renaissance to the Baroque era, a source of studies for Ronsard, Chapman, Bacon and the whole Pleiad. Much Baroque iconography and various allegories of the 18th century have been drawn from this work, influential and widely emulated by various authors, as it takes up much Greek and Latin historiography.

Brunet, II, 185. Graesse, II, 236. Ceresoli, p. 167-168 (è registrato nel Ceresoli in virtù del De Venatione). Olschki, Choix, 13234. Ebert, 5037: Useful as a collection. Goldsmith, C-1436. Souhart, 345. Sul Conti, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, XXVIII, p. 455 e Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, Milano, 1826, VII, pp. 1239-1242.

Brunet II, 185 (“ouvrage qui eut beaucoup de succès dans son temps”). – Graesse II, 236 (cheeky: “Aujourd’hui cet ouvrage est oublié avec raison”).