Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Strife of Love in a Dream
First edition
AuthorFrancesco Colonna
Original titleHypnerotomachia Poliphili, ubi humana omnia non nisi somnium esse docet. Atque obiter plurima scitu sane quam digna commemorat.
TranslatorJoscelyn Godwin
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian / Latin
GenreRomance, allegorical fantasy
PublisherAldus Manutius
Publication date
1499
Published in English
1999
Media typePrint (hardcover)

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (

Early Renaissance style. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili presents a mysterious arcane allegory in which the main protagonist
, Poliphilo, pursues his love, Polia, through a dreamlike landscape. In the end, he is reconciled with her by the "Fountain of Venus".

History

Triumphal Car

The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was printed by Aldus Manutius in Venice in December 1499. The author of the book is anonymous. However, an acrostic formed by the first, elaborately decorated letter in each chapter in the original Italian reads "POLIAM FRATER FRANCISCVS COLVMNA PERAMAVIT", which means "Brother Francesco Colonna has dearly loved Polia". Despite this clue, the book has also been attributed to Leon Battista Alberti, and earlier, to Lorenzo de' Medici. Manutius himself claimed[citation needed] that the author was a different Francesco Colonna, a wealthy Roman governor. The identity of the illustrator has at times been attributed to Benedetto Montagna, and Sandro Botticelli.[1]

Rape of Europa

The subject matter of the book lies within the tradition (or

Romance. It follows the conventions of courtly love, which in 1499 continued to provide engaging thematic matter for the Quattrocento aristocrats. The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili also draws from Renaissance humanism where arcane writings are a demonstration of classical
thought.

The text of the book is written in a bizarre

late antique text of dubious origin called Hieroglyphica
.

The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, set in 1467, consists of a series of precious and elaborate scenes involving the title character, Poliphilo ("friend of many things" from the Greek words poly- meaning "many" and philos meaning "friend"). In these scenes, Poliphilo wanders a bucolic-classical dreamland in search of his love, Polia ("many things"). The author's style is elaborately descriptive and unsparing in its use of superlatives. The text makes frequent references to classical geography and mythology, mostly by way of comparison.

The book has long been sought after as one of the most beautiful

Monotype Corporation in 1923 as "Poliphilus".[3] In 1929, Stanley Morison directed another revival of the earlier version of Griffo's type. It was called "Bembo
".

The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is illustrated with 168 exquisite woodcuts showing the scenery, architectural settings, and some of the characters Poliphilo encounters in his dreams. They depict scenes from Poliphilo's adventures and the architectural features over which the author rhapsodizes, in a simultaneously stark and ornate line art style. This integrates perfectly with the type, an example of typographic art.

The illustrations are interesting because they shed light on the Renaissance man's taste in the æsthetic qualities of Greek and Roman antiquities. In the United States, a book on the life and works of Aldus Manutius by Helen Barolini was set within pages that reproduce all the illustrations and many of the full pages from the original work, reconstructing the original layout.[4]

The psychologist Carl Jung admired the book, believing the dream images presaged his theory of archetypes. The style of the woodcut illustrations had a great influence on late nineteenth century English illustrators, such as Aubrey Beardsley, Walter Crane, and Robert Anning Bell.

In 1592, in a London edition, "R. D." (who is believed to be Robert Dallington) partially translated the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Here, it was given its best known English title, The Strife of Love in a Dream.[5] In 1999, a first complete English translation by musicologist Joscelyn Godwin was published.[6] However his translation uses standard, modern language, rather than following the original text's pattern of coining and borrowing words.

Since the 500th anniversary in 1999, several other modern translations have been published. These include a translation into modern Italian as part of the (volume 1: fac-simile; volume 2: translation, introductory essays and more than 700 pages of commentary) edition by Marco Ariani and Mino Gabriele;[7] into Spanish by Pilar Pedraza Martínez;[8] into Dutch with one volume of commentary by Ike Cialona;[9] into German, with commentary inserted into the text, by Thomas Reiser;[10] and partly into Polish by Anna Klimkiewicz.[11]

A complete Russian translation by the art historian Boris Sokolov is now in progress, of which the "Cythera Island" part was published in 2005 and is available online. The book is planned as a precise reconstruction of the original layout, with Cyrillic types and typography by Sergei Egorov.[citation needed]

Ten of the monuments described in the Hypnerotomachia were reconstructed with computer graphics and were first published by Esteban A. Cruz in 2006[12] and in 2012.[13] In 2007, Cruz established a full, design-study project Formas Imaginisque Poliphili, an ongoing independent research project with the objective of reconstructing the content of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, through a multi-disciplinary approach, and with the aid of virtual and traditional reconstruction technology and methods.

Plot summary

woodcut of Poliphilo encountering a dragon from a page of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
Poliphilo from a page of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

The book begins with Poliphilo, who is spending a restless dream-filled night because his beloved, Polia, has shunned him. Poliphilo is transported into a wild forest, where he becomes lost, encounters dragons, wolves and maidens and a large variety of architectural forms. He escapes, and falls asleep once more.

He then awakens in a second dream, a dream within the first. He is taken by

Cythera by barge, on which Cupid is the boatswain. On Cythera, they see another triumphal procession celebrating their union. The narrative is interrupted, and assumed by a second voice, as Polia describes Poliphilo's erotomania
from her own point of view.

woodcut of Polia kissing Poliphilo back to life
Polia kisses Poliphilo back to life

Poliphilo then resumes his narrative (from one-fifth of the way through the book). Polia rejects Poliphilo, but Cupid appears to her in a vision and compels her to return and kiss Poliphilo, who has fallen into a deathlike swoon at her feet. Her kiss revives him. Venus blesses their love, and Poliphilo and Polia are united at last. As Poliphilo is about to take Polia into his arms, Polia vanishes into thin air and Poliphilo wakes up.

Gallery

  • Poliphilo kneels before Queen Eleuterylida
    Poliphilo kneels before Queen Eleuterylida
  • Two pages of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
    Two pages of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
  • Page of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
    Page of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
  • Magna Porta
    Magna Porta
  • Fountain of a puer mingens
    Fountain of a puer mingens

In other works

Notes

  1. ^ Patton, Maggie (July 2008). "Rare Books, a Tale of Love. SL : State Library of New South Wales magazine". Trove. Retrieved 2021-05-27.
  2. ^ Schuessler, Jennifer (23 July 2012). "Rare Book School at the University of Virginia". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
  3. ^ Poliphilus Font Family by Monotype Design Studio.
  4. ^ Barolini, Helen. Aldus and His Dream Book: An Illustrated Essay. New York: Italica Press, 1992.
  5. ^ Robert Dallington [presumed] (1592), The Strife of Love in a Dream. In 1890 a limited (500 copies) edition of the first book was published by David Nutt in the Strand. This was edited by Andrew Laing. Online version at the Internet Archive, accessed on 2010-02-08.
  6. ISBN 0-500-01942-8
    . Paperback edition published in 2005.
  7. ISBN 978-8-845-91941-1
    .
  8. ISBN 978-8-495-35905-6
    .
  9. ISBN 978-9-025-30668-7
    .
  10. ISBN 978-1-499-20611-1
    .
  11. ISBN 978-83-233-3908-3
    .
  12. ^ Esteban Alejandro Cruz (2007), Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: Re-Discovering Antiquity Through The Dreams Of Poliphilus
  13. ^ Esteban Alejandro Cruz (2012), "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: An Architectural Vision from the First Renaissance"
  14. ^ An object of material culture 2XD website October 2014.
  15. ^ Premiere at the Bregenz Festival (Lake Constance) in 2021.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

The original 1499 edition

The 1592 English edition

The French editions

The Russian edition

Background and interpretation

Research Projects

  • Formas Imaginisque Poliphili: Imaginary models of Poliphilus revealed. Reconstruction of the architecture, gardens, landscapes, monuments, interiors, accessories, and objects as described in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili through a multi-disciplinary research platform, and with the aid of virtual applications and methods used in the Cultural Heritage Industry.
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