"[...] working on Grotesque [...] everything is, one might say, a mosaic of disproportionate elements put together, all the more beautiful because the parts are taken from further afield and come together in more foolish forms. The neck of a crane sprouting from the stem of a flower, ending in a [scimia] head, with four snail horns that shoot fire: a peacock's tail blooming on an old man's chin as a beard, and a thick mop of coral hair; another has vine arms, twisted legs, and two little lights shining in the shell of a conch; a nose like a flute, ears like a pair of bat wings, and when he looks at himself in a net, he sees the image of a mammoth behind him: and such fantastical oddities, as painters are wont to imagine. But even in this, he needs wisdom, for just as not every tree can be grafted onto every other tree, so not every part can be well joined to every other part in the grotesque, and it must be whimsy, not nonsense, nor should the wisdom of [judgement] in arranging it be less prominent than the madness of ingenuity in inventing it. (Book I, Chapter XVI; 1659, pp. 284-285)"