Abstract: The Symbolicarum quæstionum de universo genere […] libri quinque by Achille Bocchi (Bologne, 1550) stages the convergence of Harpocrates, Minerva, and Mercury, in order to symbolise the work of silence in the morphogenesis of art, in the name of the power of “mute poetry” – nearer to the truth of nature and more scientific – on speech.