Detail View: Catena-Historic Gardens and Landscapes Archive: Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du Songe de Poliphile
|
Collection:
|
Catena-Historic Gardens and Landscapes Archive
|
|
Image No.:
|
200078
|
|
Title:
|
Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du Songe de Poliphile
|
|
View:
|
[An extraordinary fountain]
|
|
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; Fountains; Harpies; Aquatic animals; Water; Nymphs; Water chains; Water
|
|
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:
|
"In the centre of this admirable area, I saw an extraordinary fountain spurting clear water through narrow pipes as high as the enclosing hedge. The water fell back into a wide shell of fine amethyst, three paces in diameter and three inches thick, diminishing to one inch at the rim of this excellent tub. All around it aquatic monsters could be seen, perfectly carved in bas-relief. The ancient craftsmen never managed to achieve such splendid work in hard stone as this admirable and complex ornamentation, nor could Pausanias boast of such when he dedicated his bronze crater at Hippari."
|
|
Rights Type:
|
fair use
|