Editio princeps of the most famous and enigmatic book of the Italian Renaissance, as well as a typographical masterpiece by the greatest printer in history, the Venetian Aldus Manutius. Although some uncertainties persist, the text has been attributed to the Dominican friar Francesco Colonna, following centuries of controversial and impassioned studies that have always highlighted the suggestive incommunicability of the work. The book, bought by Francesco Federico Cerruti in 2000 at the Librairie Sourget in Paris, is a sort of initiatory and dreamlike journey, with an extraordinary symbolism highlighted in each of the wonderfully sophisticated illustrations that merge indissolubly with the text. The title can be translated as follows: “Poliphilo’s Strife of Love in a Dream”, revealing that all human things are nothing other than a dream, while also recalling many things worthy in truth of being known. The text tells of events particularly intertwined with obscure meanings, emblemata and hermetic references. As mentioned, it can be interpreted in many ways, which are still open to discussion today, although it seems certain that it was presented as a sort of humanistic encyclopaedia. The places of Love represent stages in a journey that leads to knowledge. In search of Polia, his lost love, Poliphilo is guided through a fantastic dreamlike world of temples, pyramids, classical gardens, obelisks and Bacchanalian feasts, before finally finding Polia and achieving ultimate enlightenment before the temple of Venus.

Roberto Cena

The binding of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was made in Paris for Jean Grolier. Grolier was born in the second half of 1489 or the first half of 1490, the son of Étienne Grolier, a wealthy Lyonese merchant. He was educated, partly in Paris, by the Italian humanist Gaspar Argilensis. He then entered the service of Louis XII as “notary and secretary of the King”. On his father’s death in 1509 he became Treasurer and Receiver General of the Duchy of Milan, which had been conquered by the French in 1499, a post which he occupied from 1509-12 and from 1515 until 1521. In 1520 he had married Anne Briçonnet. He was taken prisoner with François I at the battle of Pavia in 1525. On his return he settled in France, spending the rest of his life in Paris. In 1532 he became one of the Treasurers of France and from then until 1555 held lucrative posts in the financial service of his country. He died on 22 October 1565.¹

He was an avid book collector. His early collection was acquired and bound in Italy, the majority in Milan. He owned three successive libraries: his Milanese library, lost at least in part in 1512 or 1521; the first French library, dispersed by a forced sale in 1536; and his final library, which at the time of his death may have contained about 300-400 different editions. During his life in France he used at least seventeen different Parisian binders. At one time or another during his life he owned five copies of the Hypnerotomachia (1499), bound by four different binders. The binding described here was bound by the Fleurde-lis Binder, who was at work probably by 1536 and worked for Grolier between c. 1538 and 1540. Twenty bindings made for Grolier in this atelier are known.

Mirjam Foot

¹ See Nixon 1965; Austin 1971 (the numbers above refer to this catalogue); Hobson A. 1999.