La Hypnerotomachia Di Poliphilo, Cioè Pugna D'Amore In Sogno. Dov'Egli Mostra, Che Tutte Le Cose Humane Non Sono Altre Che Sogno: & dove narra molt'altre cose degne di cognitione.
RA Collection: Book
Record number
05/4819
Uniform Title
[Hypnerotomachia Poliphili., Italian., 1545.]
Imprint
Aldus Ristampato Di Novo, Et Ricorretto con somma diligentia, à maggior commodo de i lettori., In Venetia,: M. D. XXXXV.
Physical Description
[488] p.: [170] illus.; 299 mm. (Octavo.)
General Note
Signatures: [-]4, a-y8, z10, A-E8, F4. Some copies (including that of the Royal Academy) have text of leaf n [i] verso and that of n [viii] recto transposed. Nine woodcut illustrations are full-page.
Contents
[T.p., dedic.] - Andreas Maro Brixianus [poem] - [Drop-title]; Poliphilus Poliae S.P.D. - [Text, with illus.] - [register].
Responsibility Note
The work is attributed to Francesco Colonna in L. Alberti's De viris illustribus (1517). (The same name may be found in an acrostic formed from the first letters of the chapters: 'Poliam frater Franciscus Columna peramavit'.)
Two woodcuts are signed 'b' (which may possibly stand for 'Benedetto Bordon').
The printer's name, 'Aldus', appears as part of the device printed at the centre of the title-page. But the present edition must have been published while his son and heir, Paulo, was in charge of the business.
The type was cut for the 1499 edition by Francesco Griffo of Bologna. It is a revised version of that which he made for Manuzio's printing of Bembo's De Aetna (1495).
The work is dedicated by Leonardus Crassus Veronensis (for whom Aldo Manuzio originally published the work) to Guido Duke of Urbino.
References
University of California, Los Angeles, The Aldine Press: Catalogue of the Ahmanson-Murphy collection, comp. P.G. Naiditch (2001); Harvard University, Harvard College Library Department Of Printing And Graphic Arts Catalogue Of Books And Manuscripts Part II: Italian 16th Century Books, comp. R. Mortimer (1974), vol. I no. 131, p.185-8.
F. Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream, English tr. by J. Godwin (1999; in reduced size 2005); L. Lefaivre, Leon Battista Alberti's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: Re-cognizing the Architectural Body in the Early Italian Renaissance (1997); M. Davies, Aldus Manutius (1995); L. Armstrong, 'The Hand-Illumination of Printed Books in Italy, 1465-1515', in The Painted Page [Royal Academy exhibition catalogue] (1994), p.35-47; H.K. Szépe, The Poliphilo and Other Aldines Reconsidered in the light of the Production of Decorated Books in Venice [dissertation, Cornell Univy.] (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1992); G. Orlandi, Aldo Manuzio editore (2 v., 1975); G. Mardersteig, 'Osservazioni tipografiche sul Polifilo nelle edizioni del 1499 e 1545', in Contributi alla storia del libro italiano (1969), p.221-42.
Summary Note
This is a page-for-page reprint of the first edition, which had been published at Venice in 1499 in a Latinate Italian, as Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ubi humana omnia nisi somnium esse docet. Within the text Poliphilo's 'envoi' on p. [485] carries the date of 1467.
The illustrations are beautifully integrated with the text. They show incidents from the narrative of the dream, or ancient architecture, inscriptions and triumphal processions seen by the dreamer. Besides contributing to one of the most admired books of the Renaissance, they give some insight into Renaissance ideas about buildings and gardens.
The woodcuts are those used in the 1499 edition, with the exception of six re-cuts.
Copy Note
Defective: lacks leaves E i and F iiii.
Each leaf has been numbered in ink, as far as 238, leaving four leaves unnumbered. The front pastedown is inscribed in ink, 'reimpression [illegible] que l'èdit. 1499.' The margin of p. [13] is inscribed in ink, 'Principio del sogno'; there are occasional brief annotations in ink elsewhere.
Binding Note
19th-century white vellum; brown morocco spine-labeles lettered 'La Hypnerotomachia Di Poliphilo' and 'Venet. 1545.', spine lettered 'R.A.'
Subject
Love - Dreams
Architecture - Gardens - Garden structures - Italy - 15th century - 16th century
Fiction, Italian - Italy - 15th century
Illustrated books - Woodcuts - Typography - Italy - 15th century - 16th century