Detail View: Catena-Historic Gardens and Landscapes Archive: Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du Songe de Poliphile

Collection: 
Catena-Historic Gardens and Landscapes Archive
Image No.: 
200085
Title: 
Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du Songe de Poliphile
View: 
[Logistica and Thelemia accompany Poliphilo to a garden made of glass]
Dates: 
1561
Location: 
Europe--France--Ile-de-France--Paris
Location Type: 
Creation
Culture: 
French
Period: 
Renaissance
Creator: 
author Colonna, Francesco Attributed 1433/34-1527 Italian
Materials: 
paper
Techniques: 
woodcut (process)
Measurements: 
33.8 x 22.2 cm
Repository: 
New York, NY, USA, Private Collection, New York
Category: 
Villas
Work Type: 
Books
Subjects: 
Romances; Pleasure gardens; Dreams; Nymphs; Orchards; Flowers (plants); Topiary; Arcades
Work Notes: 
Collation: a6 A-Bb6 Cc8 = 164 ff., complete. With engraved woodcut title-page and 181 woodcuts illustrating the text, of which 13 are full-page, several crible initials in preliminary text, large 9-line floriated arabesque initials forming an acrostic throughout, Kerver's unicorn device (Renouard 515) on verso of final leaf. Folio, 338 x 222 mm, bound in nineteenth-century calf, marbled endpapers. A superb French Edition of the most famous illustrated book of the Renaissance. A large number of these magnificent illustrations are dedicated to gardens. The designer of the original 1499 Aldus woodcuts remains unidentified although speculation has included artists such as Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini. Nor has the author of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili been identified with certainty. It was probably written by Francesco Colonna, a Dominican from Treviso, in Latin about 1445. Its two main themes are the allegorical dream-journey of Poliphilus in search of his love Polia, and the praise of Antique art and culture.
Image Notes: 
"Then she led me into a gorgeous orchard on the left side of the incomparable palace: a tremendous creation demanding vast expense, time, and ingenuity, and equal in ambitus and area to the place where the royal palace stood. All around it were flower beds, attached to the enclosure and protruding from it, in which instead of living plants, everything was made from clear glass, surpassing anything one could imagine or believe. There were topiary box trees moulded of the same material with golden stems, alternating with cypresses no more than two paces tall, while the boxes were one pace high. The beds were filled with a marvellous imitation of various simples, elegantly trimmed as in nature, and with gaily varied forms of flowers in distinct and delightful colours..."
Rights Type: 
fair use