14 



side of a hill, whence so goodly and so varied a prospect is dis- 

 cernible, it becomes necessary to confine our attention to those 

 interesting objects which more immediately surround us. 



" Moreover, it has become the practice with modern book- 

 sellers and bibliographers to include, by a misnomer, under 

 the general denomination of Books of Emblems, not only such 

 productions as we have been considering, but almost every 

 work of scholarship or humour, and even of biography or scrip- 

 ture history which happens to be illustrated by wood or copper 

 engravings. The student in heraldry, however, or the man of 

 taste, will find much delight in the Dialogue on Tmprese of the 

 versatile and accomplished Giovio, bishop of Nocera,* or in the 

 learned dissertations of Luigi Dominichi and Gabriel Simeone 

 — now amatory — now complimentary — but abounding in moral 

 and salutary doctrine, and enlivened with sprightly anecdote. 

 Of the degree of attention bestowed at that time upon the sub- 

 ject of Devices, some idea may be formed by a reference to the 

 tenth book of the Orlando Furioso, wherein Ariosto passes in 



* Paulo Giovio, bishop of Nocera, was the earliest of the many writers on Imprese. 

 He informs us that he composed his Dialogue on this subject as a relaxation from 

 severer studies. This treatise, which is in the Italian language, and written in a 

 graceful and pleasing style, gives a brief history of the origin of these Imprese, and 

 a copious enumeration of the devices assumed by individual princes, or others, many 

 of which had been invented by Giovio himself for the use of his friends. This work 

 was not published until after the death of the author, which took place in 1562. 



The treatises of Giovio, Symeone, and Dominichi, went through several editions, 

 and were translated iuto French. In the year 1562, Symeone published, at Lyons, a 

 collection of his own Imprese, and those of his friend Giovio, with the same wood 

 engravings as those which had originally appeared, but accompanied by moral 

 tetrastics in Italian verse, of which the following is an example: — 



" IMPRESE OF THE CARDINAL DI FERRARA. 



(An overloaded Camel on the ground.) 



Motto — Non suevro mas de lo que puedo. 



Poi que troppo il cammel gravar le reue 

 Si sente, di levarsi non dispone, 

 Cosi fa l'huom, cui l'indiscreto pone 

 Peso maggior di quel che si conviene." 



j>.60. 



