Alchemical Hands in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Why It Matters for the Hypnerotomachia

The alchemical concept of the chemical wedding — the union of opposing principles producing a hermaphrodite — maps onto the HP's central love narrative. The Buffalo annotator identified hermaphroditic imagery on h1r as encoding this process.

Why It Matters in Scholarship

Russell documents how the chemical wedding provided alchemical readers with a master narrative that reframed the HP's entire love plot. The concept connects the HP to the broader tradition of alchemical romance literature, including the Chymische Hochzeit (1616).

Key Passages / Evidence

• ... from an embryo into a newborn. With this mindset of reasoning by analogy in place, it is not a great leap to extend the comparison with human life into other domains of experience. The union... [Russell 2014 (PhD thesis)]
• ... with ‘& l’altro fusco’, in which the word ‘fusco’ and its accompanying conjunction, article, and adjective are all placed in the same clause. Modified Woodcuts Both hands also made... [Russell 2014 (PhD thesis)]
• <!-- Page 154 --> Seventeenth-Century Alchemical Theory Prior to discussing B’s notes, it will be necessary to make some prefatory remarks in order to delineate, in the broadest terms, the... [Russell 2014 (PhD thesis)]

Source Documents

Blunt 1937 (HP in French art); Gollnick (Apuleius dreamworld); Priki (text-image boundary); Priki 2009 (reception); Russell 2014 (PhD thesis)