Alchemical Hands in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Ernst Gombrich (1909-2001), one of the most influential art historians of the twentieth century, published Hypnerotomachiana in 1972. This study analyzed the HP's hieroglyphic woodcuts within the broader context of Renaissance symbolic imagery and the emblem tradition. Gombrich demonstrated the HP's role in transmitting pseudo-Egyptian visual culture from antiquity through the Renaissance to the early modern emblem book.