This baffling book describes a meandering tour through a Renaissance dreamworld, a forlorn lover seeking blessed union with his beloved. That much comes across as barely ordinary. The extraordinary comes from the fabulous realms that Poliphilo travels and from his descriptions of them. He describes architecture in voluptuous detail, marveling over the perfection of each minute part in relation to the whole. He rhapsodizes over the beauty and encyclopedic variety of precious stones and metals used in their construction. He breathlessly presents every element of the gardens, their plantings and topiaries. He shares his awe at the solemn ceremonies, stately pageants, and choreographed celebrations that seem to fill every moment of these supernal beings' lives. And, of course, he praises the target of his passion in language that blows past all sane limits, even raising the carnal aspects of his adoration to the verge of holy obligation. Dozens of woodcuts illustrate this overload of sensuality, right to the final scenes standing to be judged in the court of the goddess of love.
On top of that wild excess of adjectival extremism, Poliphilo ("Polia's lover") throws in reference to just about every body of knowledge available at the end of the 1400s. This practically acts as an index to mythology, featuring hundreds of names from the ancient stories. Don't look to see any of them explained, however - the reader is taken to have close understanding of the entire corpus of classics known at the time. (I barely picked up a passing reference to
Apuleius
, and was tantalized by seeing hundreds of barely- and un-familiar others.) That mythology blends into the history and natural history taken as then-current erudition, where every fact seems to be served up on a platter of fantasy.
Perhaps something was lost in the English rendering of this book, originally written in a half-dozen classical languages, newly-created words, and a grammar unique to this text. The density of meaning in this translation was already so high that any more would have created its own gravitational field. I can't feel too bad about missing the original experience, however. It took five hundred years for a scholar to emerge who could take on the task at all, and Godwin has done it brilliantly.
-- wiredweird
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Top reviews from other countries
James Sutherland-Smith
Sixteenth century translation
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 2, 2019Cassandra
Very disappointed, terrible print quality
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on October 1, 2016
Cassandra
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on October 1, 2016
-From page to page the thickness and sharpness of the font and illustrations vary wildly, as is clear to see in the photos. Occasionally the font is thick and clear, but often it becomes so faint and blurry that you need to strain to see it. A lot of the text is grey and faint, and sometimes certain letters have disappeared. Rarely is the text uniform, clear and sharp, as you would hope. I understand that this is a reproduction of Joscelyn Godwin's version, but from what the other reviewers are saying, the text and illustrations aren't so faded in the original, and problem with this copy is a modern printing one.
I was expecting visual pleasure from such an exquisitely illustrated book, but the copy I received reminds me of what printouts look like when my printer is running out of ink. A real shame.
Images in this review
HOANG THUY DUNG
La meilleure édition en anglais de L’Hypnerotomachia
Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on February 17, 2016
