Nazari

While on the subject of fascinating Renaissance woodcuts, here are a few more, from an alchemical treatise by one Giovanni Battista Nazari, initially entitled Il metamorfosi metallico et humano... first published in 1564.

I found them at Adam McLean's fabulous Alchemy web-site whilst looking for background info on the woodcuts in the Hypnerotomachia.

At the same site there are extensive galleries of alchemical emblems that McLean has hand-tinted in watercolour, often with arrestingly beautiful results.

I had seen the fourth of these images once before, in an obscure, but rather interesting volume entitled Giordano Bruno and the Philosophy of the Ass, by Nuccio Ordine, one of a number of books by and about Bruno that I read during my second year in Rome.