Vincenzo Cartari was an Italian mythographer

Mythography

A mythographer, or a mythologist is a compiler of myths. The word derives from the Greek "μυθογραφία" , "writing of fables", from "μῦθος" , "speech, word, fact, story, narrative" + "γράφω" , "to write, to inscribe". Mythography is then the rendering of myths in the arts...

 and diplomat of the Italian Renaissance

Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

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According to Jean Seznec

Jean Seznec

Jean Seznec was a historian and mythographer whose most influential book, for English-speaking readers, has been La Survivance des dieux antiques, 1940, translated as The Survival of the Pagan Gods: Mythological Tradition in Renaissance Humanism and Art,, 1953...

, Cartari was probably a protégé of the duke of Ferrara. In his work Imagini colla sposizione degli dei degli antichi ("Images depicting the gods of the ancients") of 1556, he identifies Lilio Gregorio Giraldi's De deis gentium varia et multiplex historia of 1548 as one of his sources. Despite the success of De deis, Cartari's work competed with it by going for a populist approach, with woodcuts of the ancient gods by Bolognino Zaltieri. Cartari focussed on the gods' iconography and explained their clothing, expressions, poses and attributes. Cartari's work was an influence on that of Gian Paolo Lomazzo

Gian Paolo Lomazzo

Gian Paolo Lomazzo was an Italian painter, more remembered for his writings on art theory, belonging to the second generation that produced Mannerism in Italian art and architecture.Gian Paolo Lomazzo was born in Milan from a family emigrated from the town of Lomazzo...

. The antiquarian and philologist Lorenzo Pignoria added extra text and notes to the work in 1615 along with Seconda Parte delle Imagini de gli Dei Indiani, a second volume containing a short series of images of Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 and Japanese deities. In his Teutschen Academie Joachim von Sandrart

Joachim von Sandrart

Joachim von Sandrart was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age.-Biography:Sandrart was born in Frankfurt, but the family originated from Mons...

 writes of his respect for Cartari's work, which Sandrart republished in translation in 1680 with new illustrations.