"A Helen and Kurt Wolff book."

Daphne -- An account of events in the Monferrato -- The serraglio of wonders -- Fortification display'd -- The labyrinth of the world -- The great art of light and shadow -- Pavane lachryme -- The curious learning of the wits of the day -- The Aristotelian telescope -- Geography and hydrography reformed -- The art of prudence -- The passions of the soul -- The map of tenderness -- A treatise on the science of arms -- Horologium oscillatorium -- Discourse on the powder of sympathy -- Longitudinum optata scientia -- Unheard-of curiosities -- A new voyage round the world -- Wit and the art of ingenuity -- Telluris theoria sacra -- The orange dove -- Divers and artifcious machines -- Dialogues of the maximum systems -- Technica curiosa -- Delights for the ingenious: a collection of emblems -- The secrets of the flux and reflux of the sea -- Of the origin of novels -- The soul of Ferrante -- Anatomy of erotic melancholy -- A breviary for politicals -- A garden of delights -- Mundus subterraneus -- Monologue on the plurality of worlds -- Joyfull newes out of the newfound worlde -- The rule and exercises of holy dying -- Paradoxical exercises regarding the thinking of stones -- An enquiry into the nature and place of hell -- Itinerarium extaticum coeleste -- Colophon.

A 17th Century Italian knight recounts his adventures during a siege in the Thirty Years' War and afterwards in naval espionage against the British. In between, he describes the salons of Paris, lessons in fencing and reasons of state, and gives his thoughts on writing love letters and on blasphemy.