Alchemical Hands in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Why It Matters for the Hypnerotomachia

Obelisks appear throughout the HP as bearers of hieroglyphic inscriptions and as monuments connecting the narrative to Egyptian antiquity. The most famous is the obelisk surmounting the elephant (b6v-b7r), which influenced Bernini's 1667 sculpture.

Why It Matters in Scholarship

The HP's obelisks reflect the Renaissance conviction that Egyptian monuments encoded prisca sapientia. Curran (1998) connects them to the broader humanist project of recovering ancient knowledge through the study of inscribed monuments.

Key Passages / Evidence

• ... Among the imaginary ancient monuments encountered by Poliphilo in the 'archaeological dreamscape' of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a significant number contain ele- ments that can be... [Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Curran_Brian_A_The_Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili]
• ... to the memory of his uncle, Valeriano reconstructs a 'hieroglyphic symposium,' held in Venice around I522, in which Fra Urbano is presented as the principal speaker and 'expert."'7 Urbano and... [Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Curran_Brian_A_The_Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili]
• ... Poliphilo will access the other spaces in his dream. In the rectangular enclosed area in front of the pyramid there are three significant monuments that remain intact, namely, the statue of a... [The_Narrative_Function_of_Hieroglyphs_in]

Source Documents

HP (Da Capo edition); HP primary text; Lefaivre 1997 (Alberti attribution); O'Neill (Durham thesis); Priki 2009 (reception); Russell 2014 (PhD thesis); 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