Comes, Natalis

, or Noel Conti, an Italian writer, was born at Venice about the commencement of the sixteenth century, and became greatly distinguished for classical learning. He translated from Greek into Latin the “Deipnosophistse of Athenaeus,” the “Rhetoric of Hermogenes,” and he published original poems in both these languages. He wrote a history of his own times from 1545 to 1581, fol. 1612, a very scarce edition. The first was that of 1572, 4to, but his principal work is a system of |

mythology entitled “Mythologiae, sive explicationis Fabularum, lib. X.” Padua, 1616, 4to, and often reprinted. It was dedicated to Charles IX. of France. He died in 158i., and on account of his love of allegory and mysticism he was denominated by Joseph Scaliger, rather harshly, "Homo futilissimus. ¹