History of Monsters 295

...boy they understood birth; by an old man, death; by a hawk, God; by a fish, hatred; and by a crocodile, impudence.

We shall now turn to the consideration of images for inanimate things, which nevertheless feature human forms. When depicting the World, Cartari uses the icon of a man with crooked feet, dressed in multicolored clothing, and supporting a large sphere on his head. The sphere signifies the roundness of the World, the splayed feet represent its lack of local motion, and the multicolored garment signifies the varied nature of the stars. What is more, the ancients even used the human form to express the winds. The image of Boreas was a man with swollen cheeks, hair covered in snow, serpentine tails, and wings attached to his legs. The wind opposite this, namely Notus or Auster, was shown—according to Cartari's view—as a winged man with a dark face and a cloudy brow, his hair and beard dripping wet. Indeed, when Ovid speaks of this wind, he attributes rain to it:

"...the opposite land grows wet with constant clouds and the rainy Auster."

If they wished to describe the wind coming from the eastern quarter, they painted a winged man of black color with an image of a fiery sun above his head; in this way they designated the wind Eurus, for a fiery rising sun indicates that Eurus will blow the following day. However, when delineating a youth with a soft face, naked, winged, and crowned with flowers, they intended the wind Zephyrus. This wind, which opens the spring and the year, was established by antiquity as the husband of the goddess Flora.

The images of the months should not be overlooked, which, according to the opinion of the philosopher Eustathius, are depicted in various ways. Although a two-faced man designates the month of January because this month joins the end of the preceding year to the beginning of the next, Eustathius nevertheless paints a clothed youth, raising his left hand and caressing dogs with his right, as if to incite them to the hunt, since in the month of January men devote themselves to the hunting of wild beasts.

To represent February, he depicts an old man dressed in skins, with bare feet, near a blazing hearth.

To express March, the same author paints an armored soldier, equipped with a spear and shield. This alludes to the name of the month, which was called March because it was consecrated to Mars, or because soldiers, after having spent the winter, prepare themselves again for battle in this month.

April is expressed by the icon of a shepherd with a goat and newborn kids; this alludes to the month in which animals everywhere multiply. But if a youth of handsome face, with hair flowing over his shoulders and crowned with roses, is depicted in a flowery meadow, then according to Eustathius, it signifies the month of May.

Otherwise, a man dressed in rustic clothes, with bare arms and feet, wreathed with a crown of flax flowers and shown with a scythe, will denote June, at which time the flax and hay reach full maturity. A man covered by a hat, almost entirely naked, reaping wheat in the fields, signifies July, the time when reapers devote themselves to the harvest. Alternatively, a naked man with a cup in his right hand and covering his private parts with cloths in his left, standing before a bath, demonstrates August, as at this time men indulge in wine and baths.

September is declared by the figure of a man with hair scattered over his shoulders and bare feet, who presses a vine with his right hand and removes clusters of grapes with his left. When the icon of a youth with bird cages and snares is seen in a meadow, October is understood, as at this time men delight in fowling. A clothed man, covered by a hat, with oxen and a plow, signifies November. And when such a figure is seen with a basket full of seeds, it will indicate December.

Others, to express each month according to the mind of the farmers, use human figures but add the image of that instrument which the country folk employ in each specific month. Others, perhaps more correctly, in order to represent each month, painted a youth pointing with his hand to that sign of the Zodiac which the sun usually enters in each month, just as is expressed in these verses:

"March and Aries bring forth the times of Spring, April brings with it the horns of the bull Taurus,"