Alchemical Hands in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Why It Matters for the Hypnerotomachia

The HP enacts the antiquarian mode of knowledge-making: Poliphilo encounters ruins, inscriptions, and ancient monuments, and generates understanding through careful observation and recording. The book's verbal and visual strategies derive from the fifteenth-century antiquarian tradition.

Why It Matters in Scholarship

Griggs (1998) argues that the HP should be understood as the culmination of Italian antiquarianism rather than Romantic escapism. The book's strategies derive from Cyriacus of Ancona's commentaria and mid-century manuscript collections of inscriptions and monuments.

Key Passages / Evidence

• ... II. Leon Battista Alberti, Self-Portrait Medal (c. 1436-8) (National Gallery, Washington, DC). in obelisks, Alberti does not appear to have made a serious effort to test his theory against a... [Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Curran_Brian_A_The_Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili]
• ... Poliphilo Hypnerotomachia (p.27) Having examined Poliphilo’s self-transformation from the perspective of narrative thresholds, and the formal and arithmosophical symbolism of... [O'Neill (Durham thesis)]
• ... the sylloge serves as a guide to a visually accessible antiquity. Marcanova's manuscript opens with an album of 15 pen and ink drawings depicting Roman locations and monuments. Military... [Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Griggs_Tamara_Promoting_the_past_The_Hypnerot]

Source Documents

Blunt 1937 (HP in French art); Gollnick (Apuleius dreamworld); Lefaivre 1997 (Alberti attribution); O'Neill (Durham thesis); Semler 2006 (Dallington); Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Bury_John_Chapter_III_of_the_Hypnerotomachia; Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Curran_Brian_A_The_Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili; Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Griggs_Tamara_Promoting_the_past_The_Hypnerot; Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Temple_N_The_Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili_as_a_p