Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream

ISBN-13: 9780500285497 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 496 str.

Francesco Colonna

Opis

It is a strange, pagan, pedantic, erotic, allegorical, mythological romance relating in highly stylized Italian the quest of Poliphilo for his beloved Polia. The author (presumed to be Francesco Colonna, a friar of dubious reputation) was obsessed by architecture, landscape, and costume--it is not going too far to say sexually obsessed--and its 174 woodcuts are a primary source for Renaissance ideas on both buildings and gardens In 1592 an attempt was made to produce an English version but the translator gave up. The task has been triumphantly accomplished by Joscelyn Godwin, who succeeds in reproducing all its wayward charm and arcane learning in language accessible to the modern reader.

O autorze

Exactly 500 years after its first publication by the great Venetian printing houseAldus Manutius, Francesco Colonna's weird, erotic, allegorical antiquarian tale,Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, was translated into English and reprinted in full, togetherwith all of its 174 original - and enchanting - woodcut illustrations