Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/180

 144 NOTES AND QUERIES. Li2s.vn.Aua. 21, 1020. figure leaning on a pole, leans forward -eagerly to listen. The brutish face of the old man and the Satyr are vividly etched. To the left stands a tree, full-foliaged, with shadowy trunk and beyond it in fine pers- pective a hilly landscape across which flits a spirit. Sternuto d'Ercole. Hercules, an enormous head and shoulders with left hand closed on soldier reclining on the ground beside him, rsneezes into the air a band of children, soldiers, men, all minute in size. It is the . same motive as in the Lilliputian adventures of Gulliver. Flowers grow round him and of the play lies in Africa at the sources of the Nile. The engraving was undoubtedly inspired by the "Nile" statue now in the Vatican. This play, written before 1723, preceded Gulliver's Travels -by at least three years. Could Swift have been influenced by Mar- tello's grotesque ? Dzl Volo Dialogo : Mattina Prima. The first scientific poem, with Antonio Conti's the eighteenth century, it has extraordinary importance for it foreshadows modern aero- nautics with amazing insight. The engraving represents on the left an old man with a book (Democritus ridet) at his feet who points to two ships floating in the air. The first ship is merely a wooden boat, the second of more interest, since it represents, upside down, a bird-like structure with feather -wings and a slight awning above. From tail to head stretches a sail ; the tail acts as rudder. A figure stands inside watching one falling through the air. On the ground lies the ruin of another ship while behind stretches an undulating land- scape with bridge and tower and rows of poplars. Vol. vi. This contains the finest plates from the artistic point of view, conceived with a boldness of design and crispness of technique almost unrivalled. Frontispiece (A. van Westerout inc.) re- presents a shepherd-lad with fluta seated gracefully beneath a beautifully modelled tree and holding out an exquisite hand to the goddess who, supported by a cloud, extends a harp to him. A cherub holds a wreath above the head of the goddess. Sheep, sketched very realistically, are bend- ng over a pool beside him. GliOcchi di Gesu. In six books contains six different heads of the Christ rendered in a wonderfully soft and luminous technique and six other plates engraved by F. Aquila. (1) A shepherd runs round a tree labelled " Occhi di Gesii " while a flying saint points to a church on a hill. The Head shows Christ holding a candle flaming in a great eye above a sphere which emerges from the clouds (Jer. i. 11) (B. Mancini pinx. J. Frey inc.). . (2) Two angels look through a telescope at the earth floating in the sky while a long-haired man stands beside them. Trees ascend in a single row to a square, many- columned Renaissance building. (3) A snake lies at the foot of a sym- metrical tree while a shepherd, furnished with a crook, stands at one side. On the other side is a maid and between them the same long-haired figure. The story is obvious Adam, Eve, God and Satan. ^(4) The youth and maid again lie listening to the words of the sage while an airship, many-oared, rises into the air above a rocky island in a lake where stands a circular temple. On the island is a tree shadowing a gesturing angel. (5) Notable for the finely-proportioned shepherd in the foreground. '-U(6) An angel with a torch runs beneath a tree heavy with fruit the figure is wonder- fully vivacious and the line harmonious. <Ppn the Head engraving, Jesus looks down on the world " Respiciens per Fenestras prospiciens per Cancellos." It would be interesting to compare this series with the drawings of Blake on the same subject. P&jVol. vii. Frontispiece. A long alley of trees with a row of maidens on each side a fountain sprays in the centre, a winged horse rampant. In the foreground stand Dante and Apollo and to the left a maid with a harp is dancing. From the selection of engravings noted above it is evident that the importance of this edition of Martello cannot be over- estimated. The points of interest are numerous and all valuable in the study of the theatre, of art, of comparative literature. Perhaps, at a later date, further details may be available regarding many of those questions but a mere enumeration may suffice for broad conclusions. HUGH QUIGLEY.
 * a club, three Lilliputian women and a
 * in the background is a town. The scene
 * Globo di Venere,' to have been written in