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The Book that inspired The Rule of Four
— discover the secret codes!
HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI
The Strife of Love in a Dream Francesco Colonna Translated by Joscelyn Godwin NEW EDITION / REDUCED FORMAT "As a window into early Renaissance involvement with antiquity, there may be nothing better. . . . The long-awaited and very readable translation of a curious Renaissance book." —Choice
It is a strange, pagan, pedantic, erotic, allegorical, mythological romance relating in highly stylized Italian the quest of Poliphilo for his beloved Polia. The author (presumed to be Francesco Colonna, a friar of dubious reputation) was obsessed by architecture, landscape, and costume—it is not going too far to say sexually obsessed—and its 174 woodcuts are a primary source for Renaissance ideas on both buildings and gardens. In 1592 a beginning was made to produce an English version but the translator gave up partway. The task has been triumphantly accomplished by Joscelyn Godwin, who succeeds in reproducing all its wayward charm and arcane learning in language accessible to the modern reader. Joscelyn Godwin is Professor of Music at Colgate University. He has written books on the seventeenth-century occult philosophers Robert Fludd and Athanasius Kircher, as well as on the history of theosophy and on the spiritual dimension of music.
"Godwin has confronted the demands of Poliphilo's 'strife of love in a dream' with subtle skill."
ISBN 0-500-51104-7 · 6" x 9" · 174 illustrations · 476 pages · RENAISSANCE STUDIES / ARCHITECTURE
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One of the most famous books in the world, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, read by every Renaissance intellectual and referred to in studies of art and culture ever since, was first published in English by Thames & Hudson in 1999 in a large format that exactly matched the original in size, design, and typography. Now this classic study is made available to a wider public in a reduced-format volume that retains all the text and illustrations.