Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in Its French Edition with 180 Contemporary Coloured Woodcuts à l’italienne
[Colonna, Francesco]. Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du songe de Poliphile, Deduisant comme Amour le combat à l’occasion de Polia. […] Nouuellement traduict de langage Italien en Francois. Paris, Jacques Kerver, 1561.
One of the supreme masterpieces of Renaissance book art and among the most celebrated illustrated books ever printed: the French Hypnerotomachie of 1561, adorned with more than 180 extraordinary woodcuts printed à l’italienne and entirely contemporary coloured in delicate polychromy.
Conceived as a total work of art uniting typography, architecture, myth, erotic allegory, archaeology, dream narrative, and illustration into a single harmonious vision, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has often been called the most beautiful book of the Renaissance. The present copy is of exceptional importance for its extensive early colouring, which appears to be unique among recorded copies known to the catalogue.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
a6 A-Z6 Aa-Bb6 Cc8 = 6 leaves, 157 numbered leaves, 1 leaf. Printed with narrow marginal commentary column occasionally used; several lines in Greek.
Illustrated with large architectural title border, 181 woodcut illustrations in various sizes including 11 full-page compositions, all contemporary coloured, together with printer’s device, nine coloured headpieces, forty large historiated initials, and additional decorative initials throughout. Folio, virtually untrimmed with numerous deckle edges preserved (348 × 223 mm).
Eighteenth-century dark brown calf binding over six raised bands with gilt spine title and floral tooling in compartments; double gilt fillet borders to covers. Remarkably, the original sixteenth-century black centre panels with arabesque cartouches and fleurons were preserved and inset into the later binding.
The Renaissance Dream Book
Few books embody the imagination of the Renaissance as completely as the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.
First printed by Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1499, the work follows the dream-journey of Poliphilo in pursuit of his beloved Polia through an immense allegorical landscape of ruins, gardens, pyramids, obelisks, temples, triumphal processions, mythological ceremonies, and erotic initiations.
The anonymous author concealed his identity through an acrostic formed from the opening letters of the chapters:
“POLIAM FRATER FRANCISCUS COLUMNA PERAMAVIT.”
The author is generally identified as the Venetian Dominican Francesco Colonna (1433–1527), a humanist deeply immersed in classical antiquity, architecture, rhetoric, mythology, archaeology, and Neoplatonic philosophy.
The narrative combines the sensuality of a love romance with the encyclopedic ambition of Renaissance humanism. Pliny, Vitruvius, Hippocrates, Alberti, Dante, Boccaccio, ancient mythology, Egyptian motifs, classical architecture, inscriptions, botany, and archaeology merge into a dream-world unlike anything else in Renaissance literature.
The French Renaissance Reinvents the Hypnerotomachia
The first French edition appeared in Paris in 1546 in the translation of Jean Martin. Rather than a literal translation, it became a highly creative reinterpretation of the Italian original:
“plutôt un extrait ou une imitation du Poliphile italien, qu’une véritable traduction.”
The illustrations likewise freely reinterpret the celebrated Aldine woodcuts of 1499. Fourteen entirely new subjects were added in the French edition, possibly designed by Jean Cousin, Jean Goujon, and other major artists of the French Renaissance.
The present 1561 printing is the third French edition, issued again by Jacques Kerver and closely following the celebrated 1546 edition.
More Than 180 Woodcuts à l’italienne
The visual program of the book remains astonishing.
The woodcuts depict antique architecture, triumphal processions, inscriptions, gardens, ritual ceremonies, mythological scenes, ruins, fountains, obelisks, sarcophagi, labyrinths, temples, and erotic encounters with extraordinary elegance and clarity of line.
Their compositional balance softens the often delirious fantasy of the text itself. Perspective, architectural proportion, and rhythmic linearity create a dream-space suspended between archaeology and hallucination.
The present copy’s contemporary colouring transforms the illustrations even further.
Long before later classicism imposed the fantasy of a monochrome white antiquity, this copy restores something closer to the lost polychromy of the ancient world itself. The colouring is not heavy or opaque, but delicately washed à l’italienne, preserving the refinement of the line work while animating architecture, garments, landscapes, ornaments, and mythological scenes with luminous colour.
From the Roman de la Rose to the Renaissance Dream
The Hypnerotomachia effectively replaced the medieval Roman de la Rose as the great allegorical love narrative of the Renaissance.
Yet the difference between the two worlds could hardly be greater.
Where the medieval dream vision unfolds within the enclosed garden of courtly love, Poliphilo wanders instead through vast desolate landscapes, ancient ruins, dark forests, pyramids, necropolises, and idealized classical architectures. The beloved Polia gradually becomes less an inaccessible courtly lady than a guide through aesthetic, philosophical, and sensual initiation itself.
Five nymphs representing the senses lead the dreamer toward increasingly symbolic encounters until Venus herself presides over the mystical union of the lovers on Cythera.
The novel ultimately celebrates eros not merely as romantic desire, but as the organizing principle of humanity’s relationship to beauty, architecture, memory, antiquity, and civilization itself.
A Renaissance Livre d’Artiste
The original Aldine edition has often been regarded as the first true livre d’artiste.
Typography, page design, illustration, spacing, architecture, ornament, and textual rhythm were conceived as a unified aesthetic object. The French edition extended this legacy and became one of the most influential illustrated books of the sixteenth century, shaping not only book design but decorative arts more broadly.
Its influence extended into architecture, garden design, ornament, theatrical staging, archaeology, typography, and the entire European imagination of antiquity.
Provenance
Eighteenth-century ownership inscription and extensive bibliographical notes by Louis Gaspard Joseph de Clermont-Gallerande (1744–1837), dated 1781, with presentation note to his son Adolphe Armand Louis Gaspard de Clermont-Gallerande (1798–1863).
Literature
Birchler; BM STC French 119; Brun 157; Brunet IV, 779; Davies, Fairfax Murray French, no. 100; Ebert 17611; Graesse V, 388; Mortimer, French, no. 147; Rahir 375; Schürmeyer.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 55:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II
