e faces and
placing some of them on feet. Icelus, they say, transforms himself
into many shapes, and him I would figure in such a way that as a
whole he may have the appearance of a man, and yet may have parts of a
wild beast, of a bird, and of a serpent, as the same Ovid describes
him. Phantasus, they have it, transforms himself into various
inanimate things, and him, also, we may represent, after the words of
Ovid, partly of stone, partly of water, and partly of wood. You must
feign that in this place there are two gates, one of ivory, whence
there issue the false dreams, and one of horn, whence the true dreams
come; the true shall be more distinct in colour, more luminous, and
better executed, and the false shall be confused, sombre, and
imperfect.

"In the next spandrel, between the facade at the foot and that on the
right hand, you shall place Brizo, the Goddess of prophecy and the
interpretress of dreams. For her I cannot find the vestments, but I
would make her in the manner of a Sibyl, seated at the foot of the elm
described by Virgil, under the branches of which are placed
innumerable images, which, falling from those branches, must be shown
flying about her in the forms that we have given them; as has been
related, some lighter and some darker, some broken and some
indistinct, and others almost wholly invisible; in order to represent
by these the dreams, the visions, the oracles, the phantasms, and the
vain things that are seen in sleep (for into these five kinds
Macrobius appears to divide them); and she shall be as it were lost in
thought, interpreting them, and shall have about her persons offering
to her baskets filled with all manner of things, excepting only
fishes.

"In the spandrel between the right-hand facade and that at the head it
will be well to place Harpocrates, the God of Silence, because this,
presenting itself at the first glance before those who enter by the
door that leads from the great painted chamber, will warn them as they
enter that they must not make any noise. His figure is that of a young
man, or rather, of a boy, black in colour, from his being God of the
Egyptians, and with his finger to his mouth in the act of commanding
silence. He shall carry in his hand a branch of a peach-tree, and, if
you think it well, a garland of the leaves of the same tree. They
feign that he was born weak in the legs, and that, having been killed,
his mother Isis restored him to life; and for this re