This book's final chapters praise the Laocoon group as finer than all other artworks, and are the oldest source of information about classical art.
One section of this book notes that "it is generally admitted that the absent are warned by a ringing in the ears, when they are being talked about." Friedrich Munzer wrote a critique of this work's sources, as it contains many anecdotes of questionable veracity, including one in which Cleopatra drops a pearl into a cup of vinegar to win a bet against Antony. This book's final chapters praise the Laocoon group as finer than all other artworks, and are the oldest source of information about classical art. It frequently cites the sources Juba II, Marcus Terentius Varro, and Theophrastus, and was hugely popular as a source of knowledge in the Middle Ages, becoming the first scientific book to be produced by a printing press. Divided into 37 books, it deals with such subjects as botany, mineralogy, and zoology. For 10 points, name this encyclopedia written by Pliny the Elder.
One section of this book notes that "it is generally admitted that the absent are warned by a ringing in the ears, when they are being talked about."
Pliny's Natural History [or Naturalis Historiae]