Mantua Clock dial

Here we can see the image of the ancient clock, as it appears in a reprint from 1547 Pietro Adamo de Micheli’s work, titled "Declaration of the Clockwork of Mantua", kept at the Virgilian Municipal Library and illustrated by the printer Giacomo Ruffinelli.
In addition to presenting a detailed description of the dial, the printing shows us that the whole process of time seems to be supported by Hercules, who here takes on almost the task of Atlas, giving the burden of raising with his sturdy arms the sky of the zodiac, the figures that indicate the flow of hours and the goddess Diana from which the indication of the same.
On the sides of the mythical character we can see also two men dressed in the Oriental way, differently identified: certainly two wise men, one of whom in all likelihood is Ptolemy.
The work of Pietro Adamo is accompanied by a sonnet kept in the National Library of Florence, which reminds the vanity of human gestures in the face of the inexorable proceeding of divine will. Here are some of his verses:
"But God laughs, and there he divides
honors, treasures and kingdoms,
and cause to fail our wills and projects.
Cesar kept the whole world in one hand,
and then Cassio and Bruto broke all his dreams
and all the efforts and the thoughts where vain. "