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Natale Conti
Title page of the second edition of
Mythologiae sive Explicationum fabularum libri decem (1568)
Born1520 (1520)
Milan
Died1582(1582-00-00) (aged 61–62)
NationalityItalian
Occupation(s)Writer, historian, mythographer

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,[1] ten books written in Latin, was first published in Venice in 1567[2] and became a standard source for classical mythology in later Renaissance Europe. It was reprinted in numerous editions;[3] after 1583, these were appended with a treatise on the Muses by Geoffroi Linocier. By the end of the 17th century, his name was virtually synonymous with mythology: a French dictionary in defining the term mythologie noted that it was the subject written about by Natalis Comes.[4]

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.[5] 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,[6] "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.[7] 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.[8] 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.[9]

Despite or because of its eccentricities, the Mythologiae inspired the use of myth in various art forms. A second edition, printed in Venice in 1568 and dedicated to Charles IX, like the first edition, 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.[10]

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.[11]

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.[12]

Conti, whose family (according to his own statement) originated in Rome, was born in Milan.[13] He described himself as "Venetian"[14] because his working life was spent in Venice.

  1. ^ In full Mythologiae sive explicationis fabularum libri decem, in quibus omnia prope Naturalis & Moralis Philosophiae dogmata contenta fuisse demonstratur
  2. ^ A supposed 1551 edition is a phantom, as Barbara Carman Garner has demonstrated (see Garner, "Francis Bacon, Natalis Comes and the Mythological Tradition", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970), pp. 264-291. A publication date of 1551 is still cited frequently, though erroneously, in scholarship of the late-20th and early-21st centuries.
  3. ^ H. David Brumble, "Let Us Make Gods in Our Image: Greek Myth in Medieval and Renaissance Literature," in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology p. 420 online.
  4. ^ Jean Seznec, The survival of the pagan gods: the mythological tradition and its place in Renaissance humanism and art, translated by Barbara F. Sessions (Princeton University Press, 1935, 1995), p. 308, note 69.
  5. ^ Arthur B. Ferguson, Utter Antiquity: Perceptions of Prehistory in Renaissance England (Duke University Press, 1993), p. 37 online.
  6. ^ Ernst Gombrich, "The Subject of Poussin's Orion," in Symbolic Images: Studies in the art of the Renaissance II (1972), p.120 [1]
  7. ^ Charles W. Lemmi, The Classic Deities in Bacon: a study in mythological symbolism, 1933: Bacon "accepted Natale Conti as the leading light on the subject", p. 45; F.H. Anderson, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon, 1948, p. 57; Paolo Rossi (Sacha Rabinovitch, tr.) Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science (1957) 1968.
  8. ^ Jonathan Bate, Shakespeare and Ovid (Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 195, note 34 online.
  9. ^ Elliott M Simon, The Myth of Sisyphus: Renaissance Theories of Human Perfectibility (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005), pp. 98–101 online.
  10. ^ Frances A. Yates, The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (Taylor & Francis, 1948, 1988), pp. 237–240 online.
  11. ^ Stephen Campbell, The Cabinet of Eros: Renaissance Mythological Painting and the Studiolo of Isabella d'Este (Yale University Press, 2004), p. 7 online.
  12. ^ Jean Seznec, The survival of the pagan gods, p. 232 online.
  13. ^ Mythologiae III 17 (see p. 205).
  14. ^ For example, on the title page of his translation of Athenaeus' Deipnosophists: "Athenaei Dipnosophistarum sive coenae sapientium libri XV, Natale de Comitibus Veneto nunc primum e Graeca in Latinam linguam vertente" (Venice, 1556).

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Acheron"". William Blake Archive. Retrieved January 25, 2015. Suda On Line Natalis Comes. Mythologiae, 3.1 Ovid, Metamorphoses 5. 539 Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca...

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Gaia

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Scholiast on Homer's Odyssey Hecateus fragment 378 Grimal s. v. Achelous Natalis Comes, Mythologiae 3.1; Smith s.v. Acheron Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Bisaltia...

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Classical mythology

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mythography, and by the time of the influential Renaissance mythographer Natalis Comes (16th century), few if any distinctions were made between Greek and...

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Melissa

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common thalassa.) Within a fragment of the Orphic poetry, quoted by Natalis Comes, Melitta is spoken of as a hive, and called Seira, or the hive of Venus:...

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Demeter

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De Astronomica 2.4.7. Diodorus Siculus, 5.76.3; Pausanias, 2.30.3. Natalis Comes, Mythologiae 3.1; Smith s.v. Acheron Kerényi 1951, pp. 232–241 and notes...

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Broteas

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centuries. The idiosyncratic but enormously influential Mythologiae of Natalis Comes (1567) uses this version in a chapter on the aspects of Vulcan and his...

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Cupressus sempervirens

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to Vergil's Aeneid 3.680. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae 17.7.34. Natalis Comes, Mythologiae 2.9. Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.106ff. Servius, note to Vergil's...

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1520 in literature

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unknown date François Baudouin, French humanist historian (died 1573) Natalis Comes, Italian mythologist, poet and historian (died 1582) Denis Lambin, French...

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Vincenzo Natali

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Vincenzo Natali (born 1969) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter, known for writing and directing science fiction and horror films such as Cube...

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Helios

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Elis in Hyginus, Fabulae 14.3 & Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.172 Natalis Comes, Mythologiae 3.1; Smith s.v. Acheron The son who borrowed the chariot...

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1582 in literature

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Arnoldus Arlenius, Dutch humanist philosopher and poet (born c.1510) Natalis Comes, Italian mythographer, poet and historian (born 1520) Jobus Fincelius...

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Myth

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influential to the end of the Middle Ages; and Renaissance scholar Natalis Comes, whose ten-book Mythologiae became a standard source for classical mythology...

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Cesare Ripa

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Achille Bocchi, Pierio Valeriano Bolzani, Giglio Gregorio Giraldi, Natalis Comes, Vincenzo Cartari Academic work Influenced Pietro da Cortona, Gerard...

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Achelous

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have been the son of Earth (i.e. Gaia). The Renaissance mythographer Natalis Comes wrote that Alcaeus understood Achelous to be the son of Ocean and Earth...

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Dino Natali

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Esposito's "Voice of a Legend" Tour Comes to SCU". Santa Clara University. Retrieved July 4, 2021. "Dino Natali Filmography". Fandango. Archived from...

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Parnassa

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river-deity, Ladon. Scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica, 2.946 Natalis Comes 8.13. Diodorus, 4.72.1. Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History translated...

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Come True

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2020). "Interview: Sci-Fi Horror 'Come True' Director Anthony Scott Burns And Executive Producer Vincenzo Natali". Forbes. Retrieved January 6, 2021...

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Tibullus book 2

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"be gracious". In 2.2 the birthday spirit (Natalis) comes to the altar, while in 2.5 Apollo is invited to come. Both Cornutus's "Genius" and Apollo are...

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The Masque of Augurs

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utilized dictionaries and compilations by Robert and Charles Stephanus, Natalis Comes, Johannes Rosinus, and Caspar Peucer. This masque was the first one...

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Anniversary

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year as the wedding occurred. Death anniversaries. The Latin phrase dies natalis (literally "birth day") has become a common term, adopted in many languages...

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Churchyard, birth year uncertain (died 1604), English author and poet Natalis Comes (died 1582), Italian mythographer, poet and historian Pernette Du Guillet...

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