Natalis Comes

Natale Conti ( * 1520 in Milan, † 1582 ibid; Latin: Natalis Comes, French Noël le Comte ) was a Venetian scholar and historian who published mainly for its 1551 mythographisches manual that Mythologiae, sive libri decem explicationis fabularum, known has become.

Life

About his life little is known. He studied in Venice and was a teacher of Francesco Panigarola. His main work, the Mythologia was Aldus Manutius of 1551, again in 1568 with a dedication to Charles IX, king of France, finally printed a third time during his lifetime in 1581 with glosses of Geoffroi Linoicer. The frequent dedications of his works to Charles IX could indicate a stay in France, where his main work was a success ( the first translation appeared there in 1604 ), maybe he'd even contact with the Pléiade.

The Mythologiae immersive explicationis fabularum libri decem

The Latin texts drawn Mythologia takes the original more than a thousand pages, and experienced in the 16th and 17th centuries over 20 editions; the French translation went through six editions in turn. Thus the Mythologia Contis was far beyond their time, the relevant work to the ancient mythology. In contrast to the manuals of Giraldi and Cartari Conti draws on a larger scale epigrams, Eidyllien and Ekphrasen from Greek literature. For the representation of myths he prefers a literary and philological style. After taken over from the Middle Ages scheme, the myths are historically interpreted " scientific " and morally; Neoplatonic influence is clear in this allegorical interpretation of myths as to recognize its predecessors. The concept of myth Conti says in the introduction to Mythologia that the early philosophers have derived their knowledge of myths " and that their philosophy was nothing but the importance of this word, which arises when one strips off her jacket and her garment ." Contis theses appeared on Francis Bacon ( Wisdom of the Ancients, 1609) up to Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms ( 1923-1929 ) continued.

Other works

As a humanist poet, he published, among other elegies in Greek and Latin, a parody short epic entitled Myrmicomyamachiae libri quattuor ( " The battle of the ants and flies in four books " ) and elegiac or hexametric poems on the theme of time: De quattuor anni Temporibus ( " the four seasons " ) and Cosimo de ' Medici devoted poem de horis liber unus ( " About the hours of the day, in a book "). In the four books of the poem De venatione ( "On the Hunt" ) takes Conti on the Virgilian Georgics.

His second scholarly masterpiece is Universae historiae sui temporis, a chronicle of the 1545 bis to 1581. Moreover Conti wrote a series of translations of ancient treatises on rhetoric such as the Progymnasmata of Aphthonios, on the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus and the pseudo- Plutarch 's De fluviis.

Works

The Mythologia

• The Latin original Natalis Comitis Mythologiae, sive libri decem explicationis fabularum (Venice: Aldus Manutius in 1551, 1568; : Frankfurt 1581, Geneva 1651, Paris: Fr Gueffier 1605), digitized Padua 1616

• Noël le Comte: Mythology ou Explication of fables. First: 1604 Paris: Chevalier 1627; . Ndr v. Stephen Organ, New York, London: Garland, 1976 ( The Renaissance and the Gods, 26)

• Anthony DiMatteo ( translator's ): Natale Conti 's Mythologies: A Select translation. New York: Garland, 1994.
• John Mulryan, Steven Brown ( translator's ): Natale Conti 's Mythologiae ( 2 vols ). Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies ( ACMRS ) 2006 ( Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 316). ISBN 978-0-86698-361-7 (Rev. v. R. Scott Smith, in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.04.69; Stella Revard, Seventeenth - Century News Vol 66, 2008, 36-40 (PDF) )

Other works

• De venatione libri IIII ( 1551 )
• Lettere di diversi volgari nobilissimi huomini ( 1551 )
• Myrmicomyamachiae libri quattuor
• De quattuor anni Temporibus
• De horis liber unus
• Universae historiae sui temporis