An example of a typical Renaissance encyclopaedic divertissement is found in Antoine Mizauld (1520-1578), physician of Queen Margot of which the Library of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences of the University of Padova holds some works from the mid-sixteenth century. His curiosity ranged from medicine to botany, astronomy, and meteorology which he popularised "arcane and mirabilia" with captivating writing which led to success and great diffusion of his works, read as much for entertainment as for practical purposes. The Secretorum agri enchiridion (digital copy) is a horticultural manual, in which the growing technique of each vegetable is followed by the indications of its medical use. The descriptions are seasoned with stories, literary and poetic references, anecdotes and various quips: "ingegnosa, pulchra, artificia, inventiones mirae".

The style is clear already from the title of Memorabilium, vtilium, ac iucundorum centuriae novem, of which the Library of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences of the University of Padova has the first edition from 1566 (digital copy). It is an anthology of advice and recipes, collections of superstitious practices due to popular beliefs and from authors of natural history, and written in aphorisms of one paragraph. It ranges from the use of herbs (sage, calendula, ivy, verbena, nettle, hellebore or hemlock) to cooking tips, from how to ward off snakes with a copper amulet buried in a particular astrological moment "Ex Ptolemaeo" (c. 9r), to remedies against bad smells, from how to dye fabrics and hair to how to artificially brood eggs like "tradunt Aristoteles & Avicenna" (c. 85r), from practical advice on agriculture (farming, horticulture, oenology), to curiosities like people without mouths in India living off air "Plinius tradit Astomorum gentem sine ore" (c. 18v).

In the medical field, among the recipes against different diseases (gangrene, rabies, arthritis, migraines, gallstones or epilepsy), there are also practical remedies for drunkenness, removing thorns, healing wounds, and ridding lice: rather than a cure for smallpox, there are suggestions for taking care of scars from the pustules on the face, with a decoction of broad beans and lupins (c. 35v).