History of Monsters. 300

faces for manifesting this sign, a human figure is seen. When, in the same author's work, we see the image of a man pressing down on the handle of a plow while holding an alphabet tablet, the first face of Taurus is represented; and one must look at the other faces of this sign accordingly. Truly, if a standing man is seen with his right hand extended and his left hand at his belt, the first face of Gemini is shown; thus, in expressing the remaining faces of this sign, a human figure arranged in various gestures is observed. Indeed, a man with both hands mutilated indicates the seventeenth degree of this sign; for, according to the opinion of astrologers, whoever is born while this face is ascending is said to be useless, lazy, and sluggish.

Cancer follows, a sign which, in the view of Francesco Giorgio, the Venetian, is manifested by the representation of a human chest. However, Johannes Angelus, in his *Astrolabio Plano*, signified the first degree of Cancer with the figures of a man and woman with joined hands, and so on; he uses the human likeness in expressing the other degrees of this sign as well. The same author demonstrates the first face of Leo with an icon of a man riding a lion, and reveals the first degree of Virgo with the figure of a peasant carrying wheat. Furthermore, he depicts a man in a toga sitting and gazing at many open books to denote the first face of Libra. Likewise, by figuring two men fighting, he showed the first face of Scorpio, and through the image of a man standing with a sword in his left hand, he understood the first part of Sagittarius. Indeed, the picture of a man covered in a cloak in the act of walking, with a purse in his left hand, taught the first face of Capricorn. And when he painted a man with a bird in each hand, he revealed the first part of Aquarius; finally, with the image of a porter leaning on a forked staff, he showed the first face of Pisces—although, according to the opinion of Giorgio Veneto, this last sign of the Zodiac is represented by the figure of human feet.

STATUES

The ancients erected statues crafted with remarkable workmanship for two types of success. First, as an eternal monument to those they believed worthy of singular honor; indeed, in the view of Valeriano, statues that once seemed larger than others bore witness to the memory of those heroes who, while living, were followed by everyone with titles of immoderate honor. Second, other statues were carved so that they might indicate something to viewers by way of their number, their location, or the various gestures of their hands and fingers. We have decided to discuss these matters at first glance. Thus, the Greeks not only erected three hundred and sixty statues to heap honors upon Demetrius Phalereus, but also to represent the year, which at that time (according to Pliny) did not exceed that number of days. Otherwise, to signify the same year, according to Valeriano, only a single statue would be carved with its right hand extended, in which the middle, ring, and pinky fingers were bent toward the palm while the remaining fingers stood out. The left hand was arranged so that the thumb’s nail was pressed by the index finger and the middle finger was curved toward the palm. This statue represented Janus, the god of the year, but through the various gestures of the fingers, the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year were made manifest: for the fingers of the statue's right hand indicated three hundred, and the fingers of the left indicated sixty-five.

Regarding location, the ancients erected many statues representing a beautiful woman—namely, Venus—in certain caves. By these, they revealed the unique modesty of humans in the practice of love, since other animals mate openly, while humans are accustomed to laboring for children in secret, and especially at night. For this reason, Pausanias mentions a small shrine dedicated to the "Black Venus" among the Malians.

Before we descend to those statues that were said to signify many things through various gestures of the hands and fingers, we have decided to publish some observations regarding the head and the eyes. For Manasseh, King of the Jews, as we read in the Holy Bible, when he had the Prophet Isaiah