The subjoined cut is intended to represent Autumn, according to a description of the figure in the text, where the author is speaking of an altar to be erected to the four seasons. On one of the sides he proposes that the following figure should be represented “with a jolly countenance, crowned with vine leaves, holding in one hand a bunch of grapes, and in the other a cornucopia, with an inscription: ‘MUSTULENTO AUTUMNO S.’”[IV-62] The face of jolly Autumn is indeed like that of one who loved new wine, and his body seems like an ample skin to keep the liquor in;--Sir John Falstaff playing Bacchus ere he had grown old and inordinately fat. [Footnote IV-62: The epithets applied to the different seasons as represented on this votive altar are singularly beautiful and appropriate: “Florido Veri; Flavæ Messi; Mustulento Autumno; Hyemi Æoliæ, Sacrum.”] The following figure of Cupid is copied from the top of a fanciful military standard described by the author; and on a kind of banner beneath the figure is inscribed the word “ΔΟΡΙΚΤΗΤΟΙ”--“Gained in war.” [Illustration] The following is a specimen of one of the ornamental vases contained in the work. It is not, like the five preceding cuts, of the same size as the original, but is copied on a reduced scale. [Illustration] The simple style in which the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia are engraved, continued to prevail, with certain modifications, in Italy for many years after the method of cross-hatching became general in Germany; and from 1500 to about 1530 the characteristic of most Italian wood-cuts is the simple manner in which they are executed compared with the more laboured productions of the German wood engravers. While the German proceeds with considerable labour to obtain “colour,” or shade, by means of cross-hatching, the Italian in the early part of the sixteenth century endeavours to attain his object by easier means, such as leaving his lines thicker in certain parts, and in others, indicating shade by means of short slanting parallel lines. In the execution of flowered or ornamented initial letters a decided difference may frequently be noticed between the work of an Italian and a German artist. The German mostly, with considerable trouble, cuts his flourishes, figures, and flowers in relief, according to the general practice of wood engravers; the Italian, on the contrary, often cuts them, with much greater ease, in _intaglio_; and thus the form of the letter, and its ornaments, appear, when printed, white upon a black ground.[IV-63] The letter C at the commencement of the present chapter is an example of the German style, with the ornamental parts in _relief_; the letter M at the commencement of chapter V. is a specimen of the manner frequently adopted by old Italian wood engravers, the form of the letter and the ornamental foliage being cut in _intaglio_. At a subsequent period a more elaborate manner of engraving began to prevail in Italy, and