Alchemical Hands in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Why It Matters for the Hypnerotomachia

The HP opens with Poliphilo lost in a dark wood, deliberately echoing Dante's 'selva oscura.' The forest represents confusion and the threshold between waking consciousness and dream vision. Poliphilo's emergence into sunlit landscape marks the beginning of his architectural education.

Why It Matters in Scholarship

Priki (2016) reads the dark forest as a structural device common to dream narratives from the Roman de la Rose onward. The Dantean echo positions the HP within the Italian literary tradition of visionary journey literature.

Key Passages / Evidence

• ... brings equal suffering. The Story of the Hypnerotomachia The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili begins with Poliphilo falling asleep at the end of Mayday upon his couch, with insomnia over his love for... [O'Neill (Durham thesis)]
• ... digres- sing erratically here and there, now to the right side and then by way of the left, sometimes going back and on some occa- sions going backwards, unaware and not knowing”19 where he is... [Word_Image_2015_apr_03_vol_31_iss_2_Fabiani_Giannetto_Raffaella_Not_before_eithe]
• ... book) is divided into three realms: the nameless first realm synonymous with Dante’s selva oscura; a second realm entitled Eleutherylida; and a third entitled Telosia. Once Poliphilo falls... [O'Neill (Durham thesis)]

Source Documents

Canone & Spruit (emblematics); Gollnick (Apuleius dreamworld); HP (Da Capo edition); HP primary text; Lefaivre 1997 (Alberti attribution); O'Neill (Durham thesis); Priki (text-image boundary); Priki 2009 (reception); The_Narrative_Function_of_Hieroglyphs_in; Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Temple_N_The_Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili_as_a_p; Word_Image_2015_apr_03_vol_31_iss_2_Fabiani_Giannetto_Raffaella_Not_before_eithe