Alchemical Hands in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Why It Matters for the Hypnerotomachia

Much of the HP consists of elaborate ekphrastic descriptions: buildings, sculptures, fountains, gardens, and processions described in painstaking visual detail. These passages create the immersive dream-atmosphere and provide material for the woodcut illustrations.

Why It Matters in Scholarship

Trippe (2002) argues the HP's ekphrases adapt Petrarchan conventions of lyric poetry into a visual register. Stewering (2000) analyzes the architectural ekphrases as sophisticated representations that reflect genuine knowledge of classical and contemporary building practice.

Key Passages / Evidence

• ... in Venice in 1499. This work, ascribed to a friar, Francesco Colonna,1 is famous for its beautiful woodcuts, and is certainly the most desira- ble among the Aldine editions. So well known is... [Praz 1947 (foreign imitators)]
• <!-- Page 204 --> Though ‘finisce’ is used in this case, Chigi uses the term ‘segue’ more frequently as an indication of transition, as well as to mark the end of a unit of argumentation. He... [Russell 2014 (PhD thesis)]
• ... The confusion of his efflctio is analogous to the confusion of the dream state of Poliphilo. Its movement from one part of Polia's body to another mimics a randomly sequential process... [Trippe 2002 (text-image)]

Source Documents

Blunt 1937 (HP in French art); Lefaivre 1997 (Alberti attribution); O'Neill (Durham thesis); Praz 1947 (foreign imitators); Russell 2014 (PhD thesis); Trippe 2002 (text-image); 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_Hunt_John_Dixon_Experiencing_gardens_in_the_H