It was not a provocation and Popper’s falsification does not count. Poliziano describes Mercury in Sylvae: ( the young man from Arcadia has winged feet and a leather cap/…he carries his curved sword at his side”). Apart from the galerum, a type of leather beret and not a helmet, it a seems a photo of Botticelli’s Mercury and consolidates a god without a weapon in the iconography, not even a curved harpe or hooked sword. The citation may be found in Levi D’Ancona, op.cit .page 52. An observation: the writer proposes the dates 1476-81. The Sylvae is dated 1485-86. close