Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

This paper argues that the multisensory and synesthetic dream experiences depicted in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595) and Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) transcend the commonplace concern with the typology of dreams by instead exploring the raw and sensorially embodied experience of dreaming. The paper further shows how and why the depiction of dreams in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili points to a (hitherto neglected) direct or indirect influence of Colonna on Shakespeare. The chapter begins by showing how dreams were in early modern England viewed primarily as sensory phenomena. This is also seen in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where the characters’ romantically (or erotically) fulfilling dream worlds are made up, above all, of multisensory and synesthetic perceptions. But the chapter suggests that Shakespeare’s representation of dreams as multisensory realisations of love, rather than simply reflecting the early modern cultural understanding of dreams, may owe much to the influence of Colonna’s dream romance Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. In addition to topographical similarities, borrowings of imagery, and comparable uses of dream frames, Shakespeare’s and Colonna’s shared interest in the raw and sensorially embodied experience of dreaming bespeaks a connection between their dream worlds.

This essay focuses on the interplay between the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and Italian art of the early sixteenth century. While the Hypnerotomachia exerted some influence on artists of the subsequent generation, the nature of that influence will be reevaluated in light of the functions that poetic favole accrued around the turn of the sixteenth century. Opening with an examination of two paintings by Antonio Allegri da Correggio that are often seen as illustrative of the impact that the Hypnerotomachia had on Italian art, this essay will subsequently open up distance between the pictures and their purported source text. Focusing attention on Correggio’s complex engagement with the Hypnerotomachia affords new insights into the intricacy of the text itself, its relationship with antiquity, and how the tension between these two elements helped shape the anomalous status the Hypnerotomachia occupies today. The peculiar antiquarian approach that the Hypnerotomachia takes toward the study of language, architecture, and artifacts was quite common throughout the fifteenth century, but it quickly fell out of favor in the sixteenth century. The article concludes by suggesting that art historians begin thinking of the Hypnerotomachia as the extended manifesto of a model of engaged beholdership that held currency in Northern Italy around 1500 rather than as a source for iconography and new subjects. Viewed in this light, Colonna’s text yields important insights into the alluring qualities of artists like Mantegna and Antico, who shared with the Hypnerotomachia an abiding interest in interrogating antiquity as one of the animating forces underwriting their artistic project.

Horapollon is known to be the author of a treaty on hieroglyphics
(Hieroglyphica), the only one in the Greco-Latin literature which was transmitted until the modern time. Identified with the famous grammarian and philosopher of the fifth century A.D., from a family of Greek intellectuals known for their militant paganism, Horapollon could have delivered with this work one of the most eloquent testimonies of these last pagans trying to resist Christianity, which had become the state religion, by combining the exaltation of a profane Hellenism and the defense of a pharaonic culture. This biculturalism is at the heart of the Hieroglyphica: the value of more than half of the hieroglyphic signs treated by Horapollon is confirmed by modern Egyptology, while the purely allegorical exegesis that he gives is dependent on traditions specific to late Hellenism. If this treatise, which, since its rediscovery in 1419, served as the basis for modern attempts to decipher the hieroglyphs, only led to dead ends and misunderstandings, it did, on the other hand, have a profound impact on Renaissance symbolism and the vogue for emblematic literature.
This volume aims to put an end to some of these misunderstandings and to renew the study of this work.

Ruins were everywhere in the Renaissance. The scattered remains of the ancient past inspired humanists to think about the vast distance between themselves and antiquity. This study argues that the meditation on ruins was central to two conjoined impulses in the Renaissance: the recovery of the ancient and the creation of the new. As artists used the old to fashion the new, the ruin was the most visible sign of creative destruction. The first full-length book to document the early modern cult of the fragment, The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature argues that Renaissance humanists loved ruins because they represented the pastness of the past in a residual form. This historical consciousness propelled them into creating poetry that was self-aware of its absorption of the past and its own survival in the future. Whereas conventional literary narrative associates ruins with the Romantic ideas of melancholy and obsolescence, my work posits that the Renaissance was a ruin-naissance, the birth of ruins as objects of contemplation in which they became powerful mementos of textual recovery, cultural renewal, and ethical reflection.

Σο βασικό ερώτημα της εργασίας είναι η σχέση αφήγησης και αρχιτεκτονικής, ιδωμένη μέσα από τη σωματική μετακίνηση του υποκειμένου σε διαδοχικούς τόπους. Σκοπός είναι η διερεύνηση της υπόθεσης ότι η αφηγηματική πρόσληψη του τόπου εξαρτάται από το είδος της κίνησης που πραγματοποιείται μέσα στον εκάστοτε χώρο και τα «αφηγηματικά» μέσα που έχουν χρησιμοποιηθεί κατά το σχεδιασμό του.
Αρχικά αναλύεται το περπάτημα ως μέσο ανάγνωσης ενός χώρου (όπως στις μνημοτεχνικές) αλλά και ως ομιλία σύμφωνα με τον de Certeau. Στη συνέχεια παρουσιάζονται τέσσερα παραδείγματα από το χώρο της αρχιτεκτονικής και της λογοτεχνίας: οι αγγλικοί κήποι του 18ου αιώνα, ο σχεδιασμός των οποίων βασίζεται στον κυκλοειδή περίπατο ανάμεσα σε αρχιτεκτονήματα-follies, στην εναλλαγή των οπτικών διαφυγών και στη χρήση αφηγηματικών μέσων∙ ο αρχιτεκτονικός περίπατος του Le Corbusier, ο οποίος αφηγείται τη «μηχανή κατοίκησης» με την αποσπασματική χρήση προοπτικών εικόνων στη ροή ενός περιπάτου∙ το βιβλίο Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, που αποτελεί έναν περίπατο στο φαντασιακό με αλληλουχία χωρικών πλαισίων «σχεδιασμένων από λέξεις»∙ και τέλος το Danteum, το κτήριο που σχεδίασε ο Terragni για να αποδώσει χωρικά την κίνηση στη Θεία Κωμωδία του Δάντη.
Συμπερασματικά, προκύπτει ότι η αφήγηση μπορεί να επηρεάζει τη διάσχιση του πραγματικού χώρου, δίνοντάς του μια φαντασιακή διάσταση, και επίσης ότι η σωματική μετακίνηση μπορεί να έχει λειτουργικό ρόλο σε ένα λογοτεχνικό κείμενο, στο οποίο η διαδοχή των χώρων που περιγράφονται παίζει σημαντικό ρόλο στα δρώμενα και τη ροή της αφήγησης.

The main research question of this thesis explores the relation between architecture and narration through the prism of body movement in consecutive spaces. The goal is to examine the hypothesis that the perception of a place through a narrative depends on the type of movement one can perform in that space, as well as on the “narrative” tools that have been deployed during its design.
Initially, walking is analyzed as a means to explore places (like in mnemotechnics) and, according to de Certeau, as a means of speech. Four examples from the fields of architecture and literature are then ana-lyzed: the English gardens of the 18th century, whose design is based on serpentine walking among follies, the alternation of optical perspectives and the use of narrative techniques∙ the architectural promenade by Le Corbusier, who narrates the "machine of living" within the fragmentation of perspective images along the promenade∙ the book Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, which is essentially a promenade in the imaginary through a series of spaces “designed with the use of words”∙ and finally Danteum, the building Terragni designed in order to represent in 3 dimensions the movement described in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
The thesis concludes that narration may influence the way movement is experienced in real space, by constructing an imaginary dimension. Moreover, body movement may have a functional role in a literary text when the sequence of places described affect the plot and the flow of the narrative.

The juxtaposition of emblematic and allegorical persons with detailed architectural spaces in Francesco Colonna’s 1499 Hypnerotomachia represents an independent Renaissance development of medieval mnemotechnical literature, in a book which declares itself to offer “Things Worthy of Knowledge and Memory.” There are eight chapters of the paper addressing this thesis, summarized as follows:

The first chapter provides a summary of the Hypnerotomachia itself, along with a statement of the central thesis, and a brief review of authors who have previously alluded to the issue of the paper.

The next chapter addresses issues surrounding the authorship of the pseudonymous Hypnerotomachia by the Dominican monk Colonna.

The third chapter reviews some of the overt appeals to the nature and importance of memory in the Hypnerotomachia, and discusses the relationship between memory and mortality.

Following some speculation on the significance of the title “Hypnerotomachia,” a fourth chapter uses paronomasia as a route to discussing the magical and mechanical themes in the text, and how they relate to the art of memory.

The fifth chapter details the mnemotechnical context and features of the Psychomachia of Prudentius (c. 400 C.E.), in order to provide a background and contrast for the Hypnerotomachia.

The sixth chapter examines the ways in which memory arts were applied and demonstrated in the composition of the text of the Hypnerotomachia.

The woodcut illustrations of the Hypnerotomachia have been a great source of interest in the book. The seventh chapter details their relevance to Colonna’s mnemotechny.

The final chapter of the paper addresses the subsequent influence of the mnemonic aspects of the Hypnerotomachia.

This essay discusses Hans Belting’s and Bernard Aikema’s recent studies on Giorgione’s Tempesta. The authors
connect this enigmatic masterpiece with Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia, the Renaissance notion of a
Golden Age and the debate on the origins of humanity, common in North European humanistic culture.
Furthermore, it analyzes an illumination by Jean Bourdichon which seems to con! rm the evocative link
between Giorgione’s Tempesta and the nordic iconography of the Wild Man and his family, a symbol of an
utopic escape from the corrupt social system, like the melancholic exile of poets-shepherds in Sannazaro’s
Arcadia.

Masters Thesis, McGill University, History and Theory Program in Architecture, with Alberto Pérez-Gómez as Supervisor. George Hersey (Yale University) as External Reader. A preliminary look at the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice 1499). I consider this a junior work superseded by my Ph.D. dissertation, A Skeleton Key to Poliphilo’s Dream.

A study of the symbolism of love and melancholy in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an architectural treatise of the ltalian Renaissance written as a dream, in which an alchemical narrative structures the shaping of an adept through the education of his cognitive faculties. This author has speculated on the representational strategies of this satyrical and literary architecture and translated ioto English several key passages from the hero’s rhythmythical journey througb a musaic architectural wonderland.

Abstract. In the crucible of the Renaissance aesthetic, one of the main elements of the alloy was hieroglyphic image, which defined both its formality and the theoretical substratum that shapes it. That kind of image influenced some of the most characteristic visual structures of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as emblems. However, far from disappearing, in the subsequent years, that kind of aesthetic pursuit had several reappearances, especially during the 20th century, with advertising, comics (Jodorowsky, Promethea), some of the incursions in the new languages of the avant-garde movement (Torres-García) or contemporary artists, such as Laffoley or Bruskin. All of those artists
share some essential traits, with a framework that merges Hermetism, Neoplatonism, Kabbalah, Western esotericism, etc. In both the Renaissance and now, it drifts into a style that takes hieroglyphic
writing as mythical model. Therefore, in the present text, we will analyse one of the least investigated roots of the avant-gardes and contemporary art, whose influence should not be underestimated. In said root, we can find a development of what we could call thinking in images.

Resumen. En el crisol de la estética renacentista uno de los principales elementos de la aleación fue la imagen jeroglífica, que definió tanto su formalidad como el sustrato teórico que la configuraba. Ese tipo de imagen influyó en algunas de sus estructuras visuales más características del XVI y XVII, como los emblemas. Pero, lejos de desaparecer, en los siglos posteriores se tipo de búsqueda estética ha gozado de diversas reapariciones, especialmente en el siglo XX, con la publicidad, el cómic (Jodorowsky, Promethea), algunas de las incursiones en nuevos lenguajes del vanguardismo (Torres-García) o artistas contemporáneos, como Laffoley o Bruskin. Todos estos artistas comparten algunos rasgos esenciales, con un marco conceptual en el que confluyen hermetismo, neoplatonismo, cábala, esoterismo occidental, y que tanto en el renacimiento como ahora deriva en un estilo que toma como modelo mítico a la escritura jeroglífica. En el presente texto se analizará, por tanto, una de las raíces menos investigadas de las vanguardias y del arte contemporáneo, y cuyo influjo no debe subestimarse. En dicha raíz encontramos un desarrollo de lo que podríamos llamar pensar en imágenes. Abstract. In the crucible of the Renaissance aesthetic, one of the main elements of the alloy was hieroglyphic image, which defined both its formality and the theoretical substratum that shapes it. That kind of image influenced some of the most characteristic visual structures of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as emblems. However, far from disappearing, in the subsequent years, that kind of aesthetic pursuit had several reappearances, especially during the 20th century, with advertising, comics (Jodorowsky, Promethea), some of the incursions in the new languages of the avant-garde movement (Torres-García) or contemporary artists, such as Laffoley or Bruskin. All of those artists share some essential traits, with a framework that merges Hermetism, Neoplatonism, Kabbalah, Western esotericism, etc. In both the Renaissance and now, it drifts into a style that takes hieroglyphic writing as mythical model. Therefore, in the present text, we will analyse one of the least investigated roots of the avant-gardes and contemporary art, whose influence should not be underestimated. In said root, we can find a development of what we could call thinking in images.

Una nuova tesi sul'autore dell'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, il testo più celebre ed enigmatico del Rinascimento: Giovanni Pico della MIrandola, uomo di proverbiale sapienza, viene messo in connessione con le oscure pagine del volume, attraverso una ricognizione puntuale dell'epoca

The famous incunabulum Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published by Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1499, contains a lengthy and enigmatic romance, illustrated with 172 woodcuts. Poliphilo, the lover and dreamer, is the main character and first-person narrator of the story, describing in meticulous detail the dream world in which he finds himself and which becomes the locus of an initiatory quest in search of his lost Polia. The detailed ekphrastic descriptions of the spaces, objects, people, and rituals that Poliphilo sees and experiences give the readers the impression that the book is like an intricately constructed labyrinth. It could be said that the anonymous author of the Hypnerotomachia challenges the (humanist) readers to venture through the labyrinthine narrative, engage with the text and the 172 images, and unravel the meaning(s) hidden therein. A key element in this humanist “game” (Oettinger, 2011: 29) is the process of interpretation which is signalled by Poliphilo himself who describes his mental processes while exploring the various elements in his dream providing his own explanations of each structure, inscription, or strange object, but at the same time provoking the readers to attempt their own interpretations. This interpretative process is heightened when the dreamer and the reader are confronted with hieroglyphs, which have a prominent place at certain moments in the narrative. The presence of hieroglyphs in the Hypnerotomachia has already been discussed by several scholars from different perspectives: in terms of their sources, in terms of the proto-emblematic character of the book, in terms of their potential relationship to Horapollon’s Hieroglyphica and to the invention and development of Renaissance hieroglyphs, or in terms of their influence on visual arts and emblem books. In this paper, I focus on an aspect that has not been sufficiently explored so far, that is, the hieroglyphs’ narrative function in the Hypnerotomachia. More specifically, I discuss the place of hieroglyphs in relation to the overall narrative structure of the Hypnerotomachia, examining whether they play an integral role in the dream narrative and, consequently, proposing some explanations as to their function in relation to the essential plot.

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is a dream romance published in 1499 in Venice. Though complex both in terms of language and of content, it attracted the interest of many learned individuals throughout the ages, who interpreted and used it in their own unique way. This paper explores Hypnerotomachia's impact on the literature, art and typography of the early modern period and compares it to its reception in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, aiming to illustrate how versatile this romance is to different interpretations (alchemical, antiquarian, pornographic etc.) and, furthermore, to provide a view of the book as innovative in itself, re-using and transforming past literary traditions, and as an imaginative basis for the creative endeavors of later generations.   
The investigation of the reception of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in the early modern period and in our age follows a parallel, rather than a linear, pattern, since the two periods are quite distinct from each other, separated by a chronological gap. This paper's aim is to demonstrate how each period's cultural background provided the right circumstances for the emergence or re-emergence of an interest in the book through an exploration of both primary and secondary sources, using the abundant Special Collections of the University of Glasgow, particularly the Stirling Maxwell collection and the digitization projects of Italian and French emblem books.

Sono state prese in esame le xilografie 49 e 50 dell’Hypnerotomachia Poliphili di Francesco Colonna, raffiguranti l’una il parto di Leda e la presentazione al padre delle due uova e l’altra l’oracolo di Apollo. Attraverso lo studio della loro iconografia che ha portato ad identificare per la prima volta in una pianta la flammula caratterizzante un uovo di Leda, è stato individuato uno stretto legame con le rappresentazioni della Fortuna Primigenia di Praenestre (l’antica Palestrina, città di cui Francesco Colonna è signore), il leitmotiv del racconto dell’ Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, l’iconografia cristiana ed il Neoplatonismo, rilevando quindi una rilettura della cultura antica, attenta alla natura spiegata attraverso il mito, influenzata dal Cristianesimo e, nello stesso tempo, aperta ad una nuova rinnovata attenzione verso l’uomo ed il suo ambiente come riflesso dell’intellegibile.

AFTER YEARS OF FIELD RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, THIS IS A SECOND BOOK OF WHAT SEEMS TO BECOME A SERIES OF PUBLICATIONS. THE INTENT IS TO RECONSTRUCT THE ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPES DESCRIBED IN THE HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI WITH THE AID OF DIGITAL MEDIUMS. THIS ENIGMATIC INCUNABULUM WITH ITS 172 WOODCUTS, FIRST PUBLISHED IN VENICE IN 1499 BY THE VENETIAN PRESS OF ALDUS MANUTIUS, HAS FASCINATED HISTORIANS, PATRONS, AND ESPECIALLY ARCHITECTS EVER SINCE ITS ANONYMOUS PUBLICATION.

A RENEWED INTEREST FOR THIS LEGENDARY RENAISSANCE TEXT HAS EMERGED WITH MODERN TRANSLATIONS READILY NOW AVAILABLE IN ITALIAN, ENGLISH, AND SPANISH.  THE STORY BEGINS WITH POLIPHILUS, WHO FALLS ASLEEP AND DREAMS THAT HE IS SEARCHING FOR HIS LOST LOVE, POLIA. WHILE UNDER HER BELOVED SPELL, HE ENGAGES ON AN EROTIC PILGRAMAGE THROUGH ANTIQUITY, DISCOVERING INCREDIBLE ARCHITECTURE, GARDENS AND LANDSCAPES ALL ENVISIONED AND DESCRIBED IN MINUTE, TECHNICAL, AND ARTISTIC DESCRIPTION. PART TREATISE, PART NARRATIVE, THIS BOOK INTRODUCES A VAST ARRAY OF ARCHITECTURAL EXAMPLES AND LANDSCAPE DESIGNS WHICH WERE TOO VISIONARY FOR ITS TIME.

WITH MORE THAN 160 ORIGINAL ARTWORK ILLUSTRATIONS, THIS WORK IS PRESENTED HERE AS AN ATTEMPT TO SHARE A NEW DECIPHERING OF THIS LABYRINTHINE TEXT AFTER YEARS OF OBSCURITY, BRINGING TO LIFE AND GIVING SIGNIFICANCE TO ITS FANTASTIC ARCHITECTURE AND ALLEGORICAL VISIONS.

L'uso delle tavole dell'HP in diverse pubblicazioni si basa sull'idea, ampiamente accettata, che il suo autore avrebbe potuto partecipare in un modo o nell'altro alla loro incisione. Nessuno studio lo dimostra, ma sembra che un certo consenso si sia formato col tempo. Ora, lo studio del testo constata errori d'illustrazione e molto spesso, al minimo, sfasamenti. Una doppia evidenza appare rapidamente: non solo è impossibile conoscere le intenzioni dell'autore senza leggerlo in modo esauriente, ma il ricorso alle tavole ne allontana!

Il contributo prende in esame tre delle xilografie contenute nel celebre incunabolo manuziano, l'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.
Si analizzano le immagini numero 72, 74 e 75, inerenti la lampada e il pinnacolo nel tempio di Venere Physizoa.
Nello studio comparato tra testo e immagine, in un'indagine che parte dalla narrazione e arriva all' iconografia delle xilografie, questo saggio presenta diverse simbologie e riferimenti alchemici, in raccordo con il testo di Francesco Colonna.

L'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, pubblicato nel 1499, è considerato il primo libro illustrato. Il contributo critico è focalizzato sull'esegesi del testo  narrativo, in particolare sullo stile espositivo e linguistico.E' integrato da analisi sulla sequenza di illustrazioni al fine di riaprire un possibile percorso e dibattito attributivo.

The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published anonymously in 1499, is considered the first illustrated book. This commentary focusses on the  exegesis of the narration - particularly on the linguistic style  - and analyses the sequence of the woodcut illustrations with the purpose of opening a possible research of authorship.

Saggio a cura di Esteban Alejandro Cruz di "Formas Imaginisque Poliphili", con articoli di Marco Nicoletti, Andrea Ceccomori, Daniele Roccato ed Eseban Alejandro Cruz.

Il saggio presenta alcuni articoli che approfondiscano sul tema della musica nell'Hypnerotomachia, e suggestioni tra musica e l'architettura della Scarzuola, capolavoro dell'architetto milanese, Tommaso Buzzi.

In occasione di un evento avvenuto il 15 Giugno 2013:  "La Voce della Scarzuola", presso i giardini della Scarzuola in Montegabbione, ideato da Marco Nicoletti, Andrea Ceccomori,  Daniele Roccato, e con interventi sulla musica nell'Hypnerotomachia di Esteban Alejandro Cruz.

Offre inoltre un rilievo complessivo della musica descritta nell'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ed i relativi appunti delle ricerche inerenti. 

Si conclude con una sezione dedicata alla documentazione fotografica dell'evento "La Voce della Scarzuola", avvenuto nel 2013.

Lo spettacolare ciclo cinquecentesco di Palazzo Vavassori a bergamo, dove gli emblemi di Andrea Alciato dialogano con figure allegoriche e immagini mitologiche e simboliche, innesta con le illustrazioni a stampa un interessante dialogo, quasi a trasformare le pareti in un libro aperto, da leggere e meditare quotidianamente.

The essay argues that a revival of the topos of the personified representation of the four seasons took place in Italy at the end of the 15th century. It investigates the revival's preconditions and its main aspects, by analyzing well-known as well as some hitherto neglected examples.

This paper asserts that the 1499 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili deserves to be classed among the texts of Renaissance Hermeticism. In particular, it examines evidence that the anonymous author of the Hypnerotomachia drew on the Hermetic Asclepius for many of his ideas regarding pagan religion. The demonstrable debt of the Hypnerotomachia to the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, who was supposed by Renaissance readers to have translated the Asclepius, provides a reading bridge between the Hypnerotomachia and the Hermetica, as well as a context for many of the individual themes and ideas which correspond between the two texts.

One point of comparison is the nature of the polytheism of the Hypnerotomachia, along with its references to individual gods. Another is the extent to which the Hypnerotomachia reflects the Egyptianism of the Asclepius and the Hermetica generally. Special attention is given to the idolatrous “magical statues” described in the Asclepius, and their presence in the Hypnerotomachia. The paper inquires into the Hypnerotomachia’s expression of antique philosophical themes of necessity, fate, and order, along with Hermetic ideas of the metaphysical Henad. Finally, there is a discussion of the patent ideology of erotic supremacy in the Hypnerotomachia, and how that position relates to the Hermetic discourse of the Asclepius.

Based on these thematic analyses, the the paper concludes that even if the Hypnerotomachia author had no contact with the Hermetic texts recovered and popularized through the efforts of Marsilio Ficino, strong Hermetic elements are still evident in the text. These elements can be found in the Asclepius, which had long been available in its own right outside of Ficino’s work.

Demetra Vogiatzaki, Quō, in "Vesper. Rivista di architettura, arti e teoria | Journal of Architecture, Arts & Theory", n. 6, Magic, 2022, pp. 206-207

In 1499, the editio princeps of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, or, Poliphilo’s Strife for Love in a Dream, made its enigmatic appearance in the renowned press of Aldus Manutius in Venice. Poliphilo was a lover of architecture and, above all, a heartbroken man who fell asleep and dreamed. He dreamed of a magic world made up of dense forests, heavenly islands, and countless outlandish monuments populated by promiscuous nymphs and sinister dragons. Perhaps the most curious, and as a consequence, the most scrutinised objects produced by Poliphilo’s prolific imagination are the marvelous architectural projects that populate this dreamworld; monuments impossible in both conception and execution that forge fragments of classical architecture into excessive (in scale), obsessive (in detail), and unlikely (licentious) combinations. Amplified by its enigmatic authorship, the elaborate continuum of architecture and dreams staged by Hypnerotomachia put significant pressure on the status quo of architecture, right at the moment of its definition as a reborn, rational discipline.

[english]
This contribution examines the highly important yet little studied personality
of Giovanni Albino, secretary and librarian at the Aragon court, second to none
except to the more famous Giovanni Gioviano Pontano.
The analysis focuses on Albino's historiographic production, relying on Sondra
Dall'Oco's studies (2001), and especially on an elegant illumination included
in an Albino's manuscript  dating 1494, held at the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek
of Monaco, which includes the "Excerpta ex Blondi Decadibus", where one can
read the inscription, executed in Latin capital letters of antiquarian taste,
"CONCORDIA PARVAE RES CRESCUNT", a motto by Sallust which is also included in
the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of 1499.

The relationship between Albino and the renowned men of his times, such as
Gentile Virginio Orsini, Lorenzo de’ Medici and Ludovico il Moro, is well know.
The author suggests that Giovanni Albino knew also the Roman Francesco Colonna
of Palestrina, author of the Hypnerotomachia, on the basis of the numerous
references to the theme of fortune included in
Giovanni Albino's "De Gestis regum Neapolitanorum de Aragonia" and, as well
known, of capital importance in the Hypnerotomachia for the obscure quote of
the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia.

According to the author, the main stream of these political and cultural
relationship with Francesco Colonna would stem from their mutual friendship
with Gentile Virginio Orsini, who is attested to be in an epistolary contact
with both Albino and the Roman Francesco Colonna.

The "Polyphilia" intended as a network of friendships is a theme cultivated by
both the humanists Giovanni Albino and the Roman Francesco Colonna, so that the
author argues, relying on Sallust's motto included in the works of these two
authors, that the "Polyphilia" was not only a humanistic quote of Plutarch and
Sallust, but also a real agreement of peaceful alliance between the Neapolitan
Aragon court and the Roman court, a secret and alternative agreement to the
violent one carried out in the 1490s and then by the Borgia, universally known
thanks to Machiavelli.

[italiano]
Il contributo prende in esame la molto importante ma poco studiata figura di Giovanni Albino segretario e bibliotecario degli Aragonesi, numero due nella corte di Napoli dopo il più conosciuto Giovanni Gioviano Pontano. Viene analizzata la produzione storiografica dell'Albino in base agli studi di Sondra Dall'Oco (2001) e soprattutto un'elegante miniatura presente in un manoscritto dell'Albino datato 1494, conservato nella Bayerische StaatsBibliothek di Monaco, contenente gli "Excerpta ex Blondi Decadibus" dove si legge l'iscrizione in lettere capitali latine in gusto antiquario "CONCORDIA PARVAE RES CRESCUNT" motto sallustiano presente anche nell'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili del 1499.
Sono noti i rapporti dell’Albino con personaggi illustri del suo tempo come Gentile Virginio Orsini, Lorenzo de’ Medici e Ludovico il Moro.
Lo scrivente ipotizza una conoscenza di Giovanni Albino anche con Francesco Colonna romano signore di Palestrina autore dell'Hypnerotomachia per via della presenza di numerosi riferimenti alla fortuna presenti nel "De Gestis regum Neapolitanorum de Aragonia" di Giovanni Albino e, come noto, fondamentali nel Polifilo per via della criptica citazione del tempio prenestino. La via maestra di questi rapporti politico-culturali con Francesco Colonna romano deriverebbe secondo lo scrivente dalla comune amicizia con Gentile Virginio Orsini di cui sono documentate relazioni epistolari sia con Albino sia con Francesco Colonna romano.
La "Polyphilia" intesa come rete di amicizie è un tema caro ad entrambi gli umanisti Giovanni Albino e Francesco Colonna romano tanto che lo scrivente ipotizza, sulla scorta del motto sallustiano presente nelle opere di questi due autori, che la "Polyphilia" fosse non soltanto una citazione umanistica di Plutarco e Sallustio, ma un vero e proprio patto di allenza pacifica tra le corti aragonese di Napoli e quella di Roma, un patto segreto ed alternativo a quello sanguinoso portato avanti negli anni 90 del Quattrocento in poi dai Borgia e universalmente noto grazie al Machiavelli.

The peculiar iconography of the winged horse surmounted by several puttos, as appears in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili sixth woodcut, turns out to be unprecedented and enigmatic at a glance and it’s the result of the depth and complexity of the author’s concepts.

Considering the iconographic details of the sculptural group as well as the text scattered with allusions to the classical and humanistic sources, the symbology of the winged horse is brought back to the pertinent context of ambiguity between Fortune and misfortune, which acts as interpretation setting for the symbolic imaginary at the beginning of Poliphilo’s journey of initiation. In particular, the symbology of the horse, interpreted as horse of the lost Fortune, is confirmed through the memory of the “seian horse” mentioned by Poliphilo, which could disclose the connection with two figures belonging to the history of ancient Rome, referring in fact not only to Cneius Seius’ horse, but also to the eques Lucius Aelius Sejanus and perhaps to the temple of Fortuna built nearby the Domus Aurea, defined by Plinius “aedem Fortunae quam Seiani appellant”. Therefore, the author of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili intends to show his own complex idea of the Fortune, recalling and surpassing the ample compendium about it and about its contrast with the Virtue matured in literature and humanistic discussions. Francesco Colonna so chooses the image of the winged horse in order to transmit the significance of Fortune unreliability and transience, counterposed to the sturdy Wisdom, evoked by the representation of the elephant and obelisk, later introduced in the narration. A universal Wisdom that should also embrace the earthly feelings and the intellectual pleasures, able to overcome any misfortune hardships: that’s recommended as the sum purpose of Virtue and knowledge practice.

Al tema di Nevia già discusso nel 2017 viene aggiunto un nuovo elemento: l’epigrafe di NEVIA CAPITOLINA il cui “cognome-appellativo” viene qui considerato come un «cognomen ex virtute» secondo l’esempio di Manlio Capitolino che difese l’Urbe dall’assedio dei Galli. Nevia viene qui interpretata come una “Giuditta laica”. Questa lettura rientra nella celebrazione di Nevia altera Polia altera Roma per la prima volta descritta nell’Hypnerotomachia Poliphili del 1499 e poi nella Nevia di Evangelista Maddaleni Capodiferro, manoscritto I.72 latino della Biblioteca Augusta di Perugia datato post 1503 che contiene il concetto di Pax Romana fondata sull’amore (idealmente connesso ai patti epitalamici di M.A. Altieri) e che si distacca in modo netto dall’interpretazione negativa di Nevia presente negli scritti degli umanisti R. Zovenzoni e G.B. Cantalicio evidentemente partigiani di Tiberio imperatore. Viene così confermato sia il motivo della identificazione di Porta Nevia con Porta Maggiore ed Esquilina da parte di Biondo Flavio in chiave della famiglia Colonna e del Polifilo, sia anche la lettura in chiave politica delle Tre Grazie di Raffaello già proposta dall’autore nel 2016.