Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
Catena-Historic Gardens and Landscapes Archive
Image No.:
200080
Title:
Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du Songe de Poliphile
View:
[Poliphilo kneels before Queen Eleutherylida and her court]
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; Queens; Royalty; Royal palaces
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:
"At this imperial and sublime sight I was filled with veneration and fell to my knees, and straightway all the ladies of the chamber and court rose from their seats, stirred and greatly wondering at such novelty and at the spectacle of myself present in such a place. But I felt my sad and unquiet heart swelling again as I anxiously thought over past and present events: I was embarrassed, filled with stupor, and altogether suffused by reverent awe and honest shame."
Rights Type:
fair use

Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du Songe de Poliphile