Alchemical Hands in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

220 An understanding of the basis of these transitions as due to the practicalities of working with material texts may go a way towards explaining other awkward transition points in the HP. Poliphilo sees one, then another, with similar ‘awkward seams’ between them. For example, in the Polyandrion sequence (p5v-r4r), Poliphilo encounters a field littered with mock-epigraphs. These inscriptions all relate to the theme of lost love, but the transitions between them are not entirely logic...