and a trident in his left hand. When this same image is seen in a sea shell drawn by four sea-horses, accompanied by a graceful woman and a small boy seated upon a dolphin, then Cartari asserts that it represents Neptune with Amphitrite and the boy Palaemon. Similarly, if a naked man is observed wearing a royal crown, holding a trident in his right hand and a plow-handle in his left, this denotes the abundance of water that aids the human race—a utility not unlike that which humanity derives from the earth.

On the other hand, if a man is depicted with hair resembling marsh parsley, covered in scales, having green eyes and dolphin-like fins around his belly, with his lower half ending in a fish tail, then, according to Cartari’s opinion, he represents a Triton. Likewise, the figure of a man with a long, white beard, hair falling to his shoulders, bristly and joined eyebrows, a chest covered in green moss, and the remainder a fish, represents the sea god Glaucus. When an image is seen of an old man and an elderly woman in a chariot drawn through the sea by two whales, preceded by Tritons and accompanied by many nymphs and a school of fish under a single guardian, we should understand the man to be Neptune, the woman Tethys, the nymphs the rivers discharging into the sea, and the chariot the Ocean surrounding the earth. For the wheels represent the roundness of the earth, as Ovid asserts:

The Earth, like a ball, poised on no support, Hangs its heavy weight in the air beneath.

Aesculapius, the son of Apollo, was depicted in this way: he was fashioned as a youth clad in a cloak, holding a pine cone in his right hand and a staff and serpent in his left. Alternatively, as Cartari would have it, a youth holding the hem of his garment in his left hand alongside various fruits, and carrying two roosters in his right, represents the god Aesculapius. Others have fashioned the image of Aesculapius as a bearded man wearing a cap and covered in a cloak, holding the image of a winged girl in his right hand and a staff entwined with a serpent in his left, with a hen and an owl at his feet. The figure of the girl signified health; the hen, food suitable for the sick; the owl, pains that worsen at night; and the long beard, an elderly physician. Some even imagined that Aesculapius was born with a beard.

Others claimed he was transformed instantly from a beardless youth to a bearded man, so as to easily persuade physicians that the appearance of a disease can change in the space of an hour, and thus the opportunity for treatment must not be missed—as Hippocrates proclaimed at the very beginning of his first aphorisms, that opportunity is fleeting.

If anyone desires to understand the image of the god Pan, it is necessary to know that there was once a city of Panos in Egypt where the image of this god was seen with erect genitals, raising a whip toward a Moon located to the right of the figure. They added the Moon to this image because they believed that everything necessary for human use was supplied by her. Generally, however, the common depiction of this figure is a horned man crowned with a pine wreath, with goat-like ears, a fiery face, and a beard reaching down to his chest. He is covered in a spotted leopard skin, holding a shepherd’s crook in his left hand and a pipe made of seven reeds in his right, while his lower parts take the form of a goat. In this manner, the ancients signified the universe, not only because *Pan* in Greek denotes "everything," but also because the horns of this figure indicate the rays of the Sun and Moon, the red face represents elemental fire, the long beard the air, and the spotted skin the eighth sphere adorned with stars. The crook, through its curvature, signifies the year; the pipe composed of seven reeds represents the seven orbits of the planets; and finally, the goat feet manifest the earth, bristling with trees, shrubs, and herbs.

Priapus seems to have the greatest affinity with the aforementioned figure. For although Cartari, to represent Priapus, paints a thick and deformed youth with erect genitals so large they seem to equal the boy's entire body, the Egyptians