Alchemical Hands in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Why It Matters for the Hypnerotomachia

The collation formula for the 1499 HP is a-z8 A-F8 G6, describing 29 gatherings totaling approximately 234 leaves. This formula is the basis for the project's deterministic signature map, which converts any valid signature to a sequential folio number.

Why It Matters in Scholarship

Harris (2002) used collation analysis to identify typographical anomalies in the HP's woodcuts. The collation formula enables bibliographers to detect variant states, missing leaves, and cancel slips across surviving copies.

Key Passages / Evidence

• <!-- Page 18 --> Figure 26. Copies of drawings by Cyriacus of Ancona of gorgons' heads at Cyzicus and on Samothrace. My suggestion that the great pyramidal building, described as partly... [Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Bury_John_Chapter_III_of_the_Hypnerotomachia]
• ... the divine or the souls of the dead – an idea evident in medieval percep- tions of dreaming as well.10 By considering dreams as liminal, we can endow them with the qualities of that middle... [Teaching_Eros_The_Rhetoric_of_Love_in_th]
• ... imposing and pains- takingly described of all the Egyptianizing monuments in the Hypnerotomachia: the great pyramid-temple topped by an obelisk, whose investigation by the protagonist... [Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Curran_Brian_A_The_Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili]

Source Documents

Gollnick (Apuleius dreamworld); Lefaivre 1997 (Alberti attribution); O'Neill (Durham thesis); Russell 2014 (PhD thesis); Teaching_Eros_The_Rhetoric_of_Love_in_th; The_Narrative_Function_of_Hieroglyphs_in; 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