Alchemical Hands in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Top annotation across full width

'phantasma' — apparition/phantom. Reader classifying the figure as a phantasm

'Manuscriptae erat' = 'it was handwritten'. Reader noting something about the inscription's mode of execution. This is a rare meta-observation about the materiality of the woodcut

Bottom annotations

'Caelum' (heaven), 'abacum' (abacus/counting board). Theological and mathematical vocabulary

173 On a cursory reading, without a close eye to the text, the ΠΟΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΥΙΑ (‘Labor and Industry’ image on b7v appears to be a detail of an epitaph which Poliphilo encounters before reaching the elephant and obelisk. Detail, b7v This image is in fact a detail of a cloth hanging on the elephant’s forehead over its trunk. The effect is disorienting, because the reader first sees the cloth from the front, before viewing the entire elephant in profile. This cloth is obscured f...

173 On a cursory reading, without a close eye to the text, the ΠΟΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΥΙΑ (‘Labor and Industry’ image on b7v appears to be a detail of an epitaph which Poliphilo encounters before reaching the elephant and obelisk. Detail, b7v This image is in fact a detail of a cloth hanging on the elephant’s forehead over its trunk. The effect is disorienting, because the reader first sees the cloth from the front, before viewing the entire elephant in profile. This cloth is obscured f...

173 On a cursory reading, without a close eye to the text, the ΠΟΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΥΙΑ (‘Labor and Industry’ image on b7v appears to be a detail of an epitaph which Poliphilo encounters before reaching the elephant and obelisk. Detail, b7v This image is in fact a detail of a cloth hanging on the elephant’s forehead over its trunk. The effect is disorienting, because the reader first sees the cloth from the front, before viewing the entire elephant in profile. This cloth is obscured f...

173 On a cursory reading, without a close eye to the text, the ΠΟΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΥΙΑ (‘Labor and Industry’ image on b7v appears to be a detail of an epitaph which Poliphilo encounters before reaching the elephant and obelisk. Detail, b7v This image is in fact a detail of a cloth hanging on the elephant’s forehead over its trunk. The effect is disorienting, because the reader first sees the cloth from the front, before viewing the entire elephant in profile. This cloth is obscured f...

ontaining this wealth of material from such a prominent figure, this copy has been mentioned only tangentially in previous scholarship. Chigi’s copy has been noted with reference to an obelisk setting in the piazza outside of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, affectionately termed the Pulcino della Minerva (‘Minerva’s Chick, from a corruption of ‘Porcino’, ‘Piglet’; hereafter ‘Pulcino’). Heckscher convincingly demonstrates that the statue is derived from the image of the elephant and obelisk on ...

ontaining this wealth of material from such a prominent figure, this copy has been mentioned only tangentially in previous scholarship. Chigi’s copy has been noted with reference to an obelisk setting in the piazza outside of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, affectionately termed the Pulcino della Minerva (‘Minerva’s Chick, from a corruption of ‘Porcino’, ‘Piglet’; hereafter ‘Pulcino’). Heckscher convincingly demonstrates that the statue is derived from the image of the elephant and obelisk on ...

182 Bernini and Chigi regarding the Pulcino. Contrary to expectations, no discussion of the Pulcino was found on (b7v), or anywhere else in the present copy, for that matter. Bernini’s name was nowhere visible in the marginalia. The leaf from which the Pulcino is derived features only one piece of annotation, a cross-reference to an image of the Trinitarian obelisk on the sixty-sixth-leaf. Nor was there, ostensibly, any open discussion of Chigi’s building program. Instead, the margi...

182 Bernini and Chigi regarding the Pulcino. Contrary to expectations, no discussion of the Pulcino was found on (b7v), or anywhere else in the present copy, for that matter. Bernini’s name was nowhere visible in the marginalia. The leaf from which the Pulcino is derived features only one piece of annotation, a cross-reference to an image of the Trinitarian obelisk on the sixty-sixth-leaf. Nor was there, ostensibly, any open discussion of Chigi’s building program. Instead, the margi...

scussion around the history of the Pulcino. In passing, Heckscher makes mention of a copy annotated by Chigi, which is ‘everywhere described as “heavily annotated.”’15 Heckscher thus implies the existence of prior studies of the text, without citing his sources. Since Heckscher’s interest remained within his primary focus on elephant iconography, he confined his examinations to those ‘relevant folios’ bearing on that topic. He notes simply that the woodcut of an elephant and obelisk on ...

scussion around the history of the Pulcino. In passing, Heckscher makes mention of a copy annotated by Chigi, which is ‘everywhere described as “heavily annotated.”’15 Heckscher thus implies the existence of prior studies of the text, without citing his sources. Since Heckscher’s interest remained within his primary focus on elephant iconography, he confined his examinations to those ‘relevant folios’ bearing on that topic. He notes simply that the woodcut of an elephant and obelisk on ...

173 On a cursory reading, without a close eye to the text, the ΠΟΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΥΙΑ (‘Labor and Industry’ image on b7v appears to be a detail of an epitaph which Poliphilo encounters before reaching the elephant and obelisk. Detail, b7v This image is in fact a detail of a cloth hanging on the elephant’s forehead over its trunk. The effect is disorienting, because the reader first sees the cloth from the front, before viewing the entire elephant in profile. This cloth is obscured f...

173 On a cursory reading, without a close eye to the text, the ΠΟΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΥΙΑ (‘Labor and Industry’ image on b7v appears to be a detail of an epitaph which Poliphilo encounters before reaching the elephant and obelisk. Detail, b7v This image is in fact a detail of a cloth hanging on the elephant’s forehead over its trunk. The effect is disorienting, because the reader first sees the cloth from the front, before viewing the entire elephant in profile. This cloth is obscured f...

173 On a cursory reading, without a close eye to the text, the ΠΟΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΥΙΑ (‘Labor and Industry’ image on b7v appears to be a detail of an epitaph which Poliphilo encounters before reaching the elephant and obelisk. Detail, b7v This image is in fact a detail of a cloth hanging on the elephant’s forehead over its trunk. The effect is disorienting, because the reader first sees the cloth from the front, before viewing the entire elephant in profile. This cloth is obscured f...

173 On a cursory reading, without a close eye to the text, the ΠΟΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΥΙΑ (‘Labor and Industry’ image on b7v appears to be a detail of an epitaph which Poliphilo encounters before reaching the elephant and obelisk. Detail, b7v This image is in fact a detail of a cloth hanging on the elephant’s forehead over its trunk. The effect is disorienting, because the reader first sees the cloth from the front, before viewing the entire elephant in profile. This cloth is obscured f...

ontaining this wealth of material from such a prominent figure, this copy has been mentioned only tangentially in previous scholarship. Chigi’s copy has been noted with reference to an obelisk setting in the piazza outside of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, affectionately termed the Pulcino della Minerva (‘Minerva’s Chick, from a corruption of ‘Porcino’, ‘Piglet’; hereafter ‘Pulcino’). Heckscher convincingly demonstrates that the statue is derived from the image of the elephant and obelisk on ...

ontaining this wealth of material from such a prominent figure, this copy has been mentioned only tangentially in previous scholarship. Chigi’s copy has been noted with reference to an obelisk setting in the piazza outside of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, affectionately termed the Pulcino della Minerva (‘Minerva’s Chick, from a corruption of ‘Porcino’, ‘Piglet’; hereafter ‘Pulcino’). Heckscher convincingly demonstrates that the statue is derived from the image of the elephant and obelisk on ...

182 Bernini and Chigi regarding the Pulcino. Contrary to expectations, no discussion of the Pulcino was found on (b7v), or anywhere else in the present copy, for that matter. Bernini’s name was nowhere visible in the marginalia. The leaf from which the Pulcino is derived features only one piece of annotation, a cross-reference to an image of the Trinitarian obelisk on the sixty-sixth-leaf. Nor was there, ostensibly, any open discussion of Chigi’s building program. Instead, the margi...

182 Bernini and Chigi regarding the Pulcino. Contrary to expectations, no discussion of the Pulcino was found on (b7v), or anywhere else in the present copy, for that matter. Bernini’s name was nowhere visible in the marginalia. The leaf from which the Pulcino is derived features only one piece of annotation, a cross-reference to an image of the Trinitarian obelisk on the sixty-sixth-leaf. Nor was there, ostensibly, any open discussion of Chigi’s building program. Instead, the margi...

scussion around the history of the Pulcino. In passing, Heckscher makes mention of a copy annotated by Chigi, which is ‘everywhere described as “heavily annotated.”’15 Heckscher thus implies the existence of prior studies of the text, without citing his sources. Since Heckscher’s interest remained within his primary focus on elephant iconography, he confined his examinations to those ‘relevant folios’ bearing on that topic. He notes simply that the woodcut of an elephant and obelisk on ...

scussion around the history of the Pulcino. In passing, Heckscher makes mention of a copy annotated by Chigi, which is ‘everywhere described as “heavily annotated.”’15 Heckscher thus implies the existence of prior studies of the text, without citing his sources. Since Heckscher’s interest remained within his primary focus on elephant iconography, he confined his examinations to those ‘relevant folios’ bearing on that topic. He notes simply that the woodcut of an elephant and obelisk on ...