Object details
Object number
2.b.1.1
Creator(s)
Title
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili [The Strife of Love in a Dream of Poliphili]
Date
December 1499
Medium
Printed ink on paper
Language
Italian
Publication Place
Venice
Binding Description
Old light brown calf; gold fillets, tooling; gilt edges (Venetian, 1499)
Description
1 Vol. (234 leaves) : paper : ill. ; 32 cm. (folio)
Dimensions
31 x 22 cm (12 3/16 x 8 11/16 in.)
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Affixed (verso front endpaper, upper left): bookplate of Isabella Stewart Gardner
Inscribed in pencil (verso front endpaper, upper center): "Holzchnitte von. G. Bellino"
Affixed (verso front endpaper, lower left): excerpt from Cheney sale catalogue, lot 444
Watermark (front flyleaf): crown and text [?]
Affixed: bookplate of Edward Cheney
Inscribed (front flyleaf, upper right): "Ex libre G. Hulimann(?) Hannoverae(?)" [18th century signature]
Inscribed in ink (front flyleaf, center): "Francesco Colonna canonic. requl(?) Tarvioii / Hypnerotomachia / Vendig / Aldus Manutius December 1499 / 234 Ble(?)sser / Holzchnitte von Giovanni Bellino"
Enclosed: typed bibliographic description
Enclosed: two photocopies of typed bibliographic descriptions
Enclosed: note, inscribed "1499"
Provenance
Probably in a library collection, Hannover, about 18th century.
Collection of the English art collector and watercolorist Edward Cheney (1803-1884), by 13 June 1886.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the Edward Cheney sale at the auction house Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, London for £48 on 22 July 1886 through the scholar and critic Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908) and the London bookseller Bernard Quaritch (1819-1899), lot 1441.
Commentary
This curious book of fantasy illustrated throughout with woodcuts once thought to be by Bellini has always been prized by bibliophiles. Its Elizabethan title is The Strife of Love in a Dream, and it is an allegorical dream-tale of the monk Poliphilus who wanders through a quasi-classical world of monuments, ruins, and pagan festivals in search of his love Polia. The language is Colonna's own hybrid of Latin and Italian, enhanced by Greek, Hebrew, and his own hieroglyphic inscriptions. The illustrative woodcuts are virtually an encyclopedia of classical design in the visual arts, and they were used as patterns by artists of every medium, from Bramante in his Vatican architecture to landscape architects in the gardens of England and France. Although Aldus Manutius rarely published illustrated books, his Hypnerotomachia is considered a masterpiece of art because the illustrations, the Roman typeface, and the page layouts are so beautifully and classically balanced. Charles Eliot Norton encouraged Mrs. Gardner to see his copy and then to get one for herself, calling it the prettiest book in the world.
Bibliography
Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge. Catalogue of the Choice Library of the late Edward Cheney, Esq. (London, 25-29 June 1886), lot 1441.
W.A. Copinger. Supplement to Hain's Repertorium Bibliographicum, Part I (London 1895), no. 5501.
Exhibition of the Society of Arts & Crafts. Exh. cat. (Boston: Copley Hall, 1899), p. 50.
Isabella Stewart Gardner. A Choice of Books from the Library of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fenway Court (Boston, 1906), pp. 2, 55. (as engravings after Carpaccio)
Isabella Stewart Gardner. A Choice of Manuscripts and Bookbindings from the Library of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fenway Court (Boston, 1922), p. 79. (as Italian binding)
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925), p. 98.
Frederick Richmond Goff. Incunabula in American libraries; a third census of fifteenth-century books recorded in North American collections (New York, 1964), no. C767.
Rebecca Karo. Short-Title Catalogue of Highlights from the Book Collection in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Unpublished manuscript. (Boston, 1970s), no. 4.
Lisa O. Ehret. "Chateau and Garden Tapestries at Fenway Court." Fenway Court (1977), p. 28, fig. 7.
Eden and Other Gardens. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1978), p. 3, no. 18.
Hilliard Goldfarb. Italian Renaissance Drawings, Medals, and Books. Exploring Treasures in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum I. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1991), p. 16.
Helena Katalin Szépe. "Desire in the Printed Dream of Poliphilo." Art History (September 1996), pp. 370-92. (December 1499 woodcuts as designed by Benedetto Bordone)
Patricia Fortini Brown. Venice & Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of Past (New Haven, 1996), pp. 207-222, 287-90, 323-26, 334-35, figs. 226, 229-36, 239-41, 244. (with notes on possible identities of Francesco Colonna)
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, no. 07223, accessed 30 August 2016. http://www.gesamtkatalogderwiegendrucke.de/docs/GW07223.htm
British Library. Incunabula Short Title Catalogue, no. ic00767000, accessed 30 August 2016. http://istc.bl.uk/search/search.html?operation=record&rsid=544916&q=0
Helena Katalin Szépe in Jeffrey F. Hamburger et al. Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Newton: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College; Cambridge: Houghton Library, Harvard University, 2016), pp. 17-19, 55-56, 232-33, 263, 296-97, 302-303, 304, no. 240, ill.
Gallery
Long Gallery
Case
Dante Case
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