Figure 14

Emblem for Stefano Gentile from Johannes Sambucus, Emblemata cum aliquot nummis antiqui operis, Antwerp, 1564, p. 98-9. © Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus, A1414.

"No trick helps against unlucky coincidences. To Stefano Gentile, noble Genoese"

"The picture shows a fox on an ice floe in the middle of a river, surrounded by people looking surprized; on the bakcground a city can be seen. The accompanying comment explains the motto and the picture: by some accident the fox has ended up on the frozen Danube near Regensburg, when suddenly the thaw set in. Since he was afraid to swim, he drifted off. Near Vienna he finally reached the bank of the river and was totally exhausted. "Tell me, how would wariness have armed you against this unlucky coincidence? and what trick would defend you against such events in the future?" is the lesson of the emblem."

From Karel Bostoen, Dichterschap en Koopmanschap in de zestiende eeuw. Omtrent de dichters Guillaume de Poetou en Jan Vander Noot, Deventer, 1987, p. 229).

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