Francesco Colonna

This paper argues that the multisensory and synesthetic dream experiences depicted in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595) and Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) transcend the commonplace concern with the typology of dreams by instead exploring the raw and sensorially embodied experience of dreaming. The paper further shows how and why the depiction of dreams in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili points to a (hitherto neglected) direct or indirect influence of Colonna on Shakespeare. The chapter begins by showing how dreams were in early modern England viewed primarily as sensory phenomena. This is also seen in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where the characters’ romantically (or erotically) fulfilling dream worlds are made up, above all, of multisensory and synesthetic perceptions. But the chapter suggests that Shakespeare’s representation of dreams as multisensory realisations of love, rather than simply reflecting the early modern cultural understanding of dreams, may owe much to the influence of Colonna’s dream romance Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. In addition to topographical similarities, borrowings of imagery, and comparable uses of dream frames, Shakespeare’s and Colonna’s shared interest in the raw and sensorially embodied experience of dreaming bespeaks a connection between their dream worlds.

Masters Thesis, McGill University, History and Theory Program in Architecture, with Alberto Pérez-Gómez as Supervisor. George Hersey (Yale University) as External Reader. A preliminary look at the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice 1499). I consider this a junior work superseded by my Ph.D. dissertation, A Skeleton Key to Poliphilo’s Dream.

A study of the symbolism of love and melancholy in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an architectural treatise of the ltalian Renaissance written as a dream, in which an alchemical narrative structures the shaping of an adept through the education of his cognitive faculties. This author has speculated on the representational strategies of this satyrical and literary architecture and translated ioto English several key passages from the hero’s rhythmythical journey througb a musaic architectural wonderland.

This essay discusses Hans Belting’s and Bernard Aikema’s recent studies on Giorgione’s Tempesta. The authors
connect this enigmatic masterpiece with Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia, the Renaissance notion of a
Golden Age and the debate on the origins of humanity, common in North European humanistic culture.
Furthermore, it analyzes an illumination by Jean Bourdichon which seems to con! rm the evocative link
between Giorgione’s Tempesta and the nordic iconography of the Wild Man and his family, a symbol of an
utopic escape from the corrupt social system, like the melancholic exile of poets-shepherds in Sannazaro’s
Arcadia.

Sono state prese in esame le xilografie 49 e 50 dell’Hypnerotomachia Poliphili di Francesco Colonna, raffiguranti l’una il parto di Leda e la presentazione al padre delle due uova e l’altra l’oracolo di Apollo. Attraverso lo studio della loro iconografia che ha portato ad identificare per la prima volta in una pianta la flammula caratterizzante un uovo di Leda, è stato individuato uno stretto legame con le rappresentazioni della Fortuna Primigenia di Praenestre (l’antica Palestrina, città di cui Francesco Colonna è signore), il leitmotiv del racconto dell’ Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, l’iconografia cristiana ed il Neoplatonismo, rilevando quindi una rilettura della cultura antica, attenta alla natura spiegata attraverso il mito, influenzata dal Cristianesimo e, nello stesso tempo, aperta ad una nuova rinnovata attenzione verso l’uomo ed il suo ambiente come riflesso dell’intellegibile.

L'uso delle tavole dell'HP in diverse pubblicazioni si basa sull'idea, ampiamente accettata, che il suo autore avrebbe potuto partecipare in un modo o nell'altro alla loro incisione. Nessuno studio lo dimostra, ma sembra che un certo consenso si sia formato col tempo. Ora, lo studio del testo constata errori d'illustrazione e molto spesso, al minimo, sfasamenti. Una doppia evidenza appare rapidamente: non solo è impossibile conoscere le intenzioni dell'autore senza leggerlo in modo esauriente, ma il ricorso alle tavole ne allontana!

L'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, pubblicato nel 1499, è considerato il primo libro illustrato. Il contributo critico è focalizzato sull'esegesi del testo  narrativo, in particolare sullo stile espositivo e linguistico.E' integrato da analisi sulla sequenza di illustrazioni al fine di riaprire un possibile percorso e dibattito attributivo.

The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published anonymously in 1499, is considered the first illustrated book. This commentary focusses on the  exegesis of the narration - particularly on the linguistic style  - and analyses the sequence of the woodcut illustrations with the purpose of opening a possible research of authorship.

[english]
This contribution examines the highly important yet little studied personality
of Giovanni Albino, secretary and librarian at the Aragon court, second to none
except to the more famous Giovanni Gioviano Pontano.
The analysis focuses on Albino's historiographic production, relying on Sondra
Dall'Oco's studies (2001), and especially on an elegant illumination included
in an Albino's manuscript  dating 1494, held at the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek
of Monaco, which includes the "Excerpta ex Blondi Decadibus", where one can
read the inscription, executed in Latin capital letters of antiquarian taste,
"CONCORDIA PARVAE RES CRESCUNT", a motto by Sallust which is also included in
the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of 1499.

The relationship between Albino and the renowned men of his times, such as
Gentile Virginio Orsini, Lorenzo de’ Medici and Ludovico il Moro, is well know.
The author suggests that Giovanni Albino knew also the Roman Francesco Colonna
of Palestrina, author of the Hypnerotomachia, on the basis of the numerous
references to the theme of fortune included in
Giovanni Albino's "De Gestis regum Neapolitanorum de Aragonia" and, as well
known, of capital importance in the Hypnerotomachia for the obscure quote of
the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia.

According to the author, the main stream of these political and cultural
relationship with Francesco Colonna would stem from their mutual friendship
with Gentile Virginio Orsini, who is attested to be in an epistolary contact
with both Albino and the Roman Francesco Colonna.

The "Polyphilia" intended as a network of friendships is a theme cultivated by
both the humanists Giovanni Albino and the Roman Francesco Colonna, so that the
author argues, relying on Sallust's motto included in the works of these two
authors, that the "Polyphilia" was not only a humanistic quote of Plutarch and
Sallust, but also a real agreement of peaceful alliance between the Neapolitan
Aragon court and the Roman court, a secret and alternative agreement to the
violent one carried out in the 1490s and then by the Borgia, universally known
thanks to Machiavelli.

[italiano]
Il contributo prende in esame la molto importante ma poco studiata figura di Giovanni Albino segretario e bibliotecario degli Aragonesi, numero due nella corte di Napoli dopo il più conosciuto Giovanni Gioviano Pontano. Viene analizzata la produzione storiografica dell'Albino in base agli studi di Sondra Dall'Oco (2001) e soprattutto un'elegante miniatura presente in un manoscritto dell'Albino datato 1494, conservato nella Bayerische StaatsBibliothek di Monaco, contenente gli "Excerpta ex Blondi Decadibus" dove si legge l'iscrizione in lettere capitali latine in gusto antiquario "CONCORDIA PARVAE RES CRESCUNT" motto sallustiano presente anche nell'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili del 1499.
Sono noti i rapporti dell’Albino con personaggi illustri del suo tempo come Gentile Virginio Orsini, Lorenzo de’ Medici e Ludovico il Moro.
Lo scrivente ipotizza una conoscenza di Giovanni Albino anche con Francesco Colonna romano signore di Palestrina autore dell'Hypnerotomachia per via della presenza di numerosi riferimenti alla fortuna presenti nel "De Gestis regum Neapolitanorum de Aragonia" di Giovanni Albino e, come noto, fondamentali nel Polifilo per via della criptica citazione del tempio prenestino. La via maestra di questi rapporti politico-culturali con Francesco Colonna romano deriverebbe secondo lo scrivente dalla comune amicizia con Gentile Virginio Orsini di cui sono documentate relazioni epistolari sia con Albino sia con Francesco Colonna romano.
La "Polyphilia" intesa come rete di amicizie è un tema caro ad entrambi gli umanisti Giovanni Albino e Francesco Colonna romano tanto che lo scrivente ipotizza, sulla scorta del motto sallustiano presente nelle opere di questi due autori, che la "Polyphilia" fosse non soltanto una citazione umanistica di Plutarco e Sallustio, ma un vero e proprio patto di allenza pacifica tra le corti aragonese di Napoli e quella di Roma, un patto segreto ed alternativo a quello sanguinoso portato avanti negli anni 90 del Quattrocento in poi dai Borgia e universalmente noto grazie al Machiavelli.

The peculiar iconography of the winged horse surmounted by several puttos, as appears in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili sixth woodcut, turns out to be unprecedented and enigmatic at a glance and it’s the result of the depth and complexity of the author’s concepts.

Considering the iconographic details of the sculptural group as well as the text scattered with allusions to the classical and humanistic sources, the symbology of the winged horse is brought back to the pertinent context of ambiguity between Fortune and misfortune, which acts as interpretation setting for the symbolic imaginary at the beginning of Poliphilo’s journey of initiation. In particular, the symbology of the horse, interpreted as horse of the lost Fortune, is confirmed through the memory of the “seian horse” mentioned by Poliphilo, which could disclose the connection with two figures belonging to the history of ancient Rome, referring in fact not only to Cneius Seius’ horse, but also to the eques Lucius Aelius Sejanus and perhaps to the temple of Fortuna built nearby the Domus Aurea, defined by Plinius “aedem Fortunae quam Seiani appellant”. Therefore, the author of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili intends to show his own complex idea of the Fortune, recalling and surpassing the ample compendium about it and about its contrast with the Virtue matured in literature and humanistic discussions. Francesco Colonna so chooses the image of the winged horse in order to transmit the significance of Fortune unreliability and transience, counterposed to the sturdy Wisdom, evoked by the representation of the elephant and obelisk, later introduced in the narration. A universal Wisdom that should also embrace the earthly feelings and the intellectual pleasures, able to overcome any misfortune hardships: that’s recommended as the sum purpose of Virtue and knowledge practice.

English version (for German version see below):

Architecture and architectural space are topics that Victor Hugo dealt with both as a monument conservator and as a writer. Preservation of historical monuments and literature, it can be ascertained, are in a certain way communicating vessels for him. In addition, Victor Hugo had a spatial imprinting, whereby this does not mean his 'handwriting' as an interior decorator, as can be found, for example, in the rooms in Hauteville House, where he lived in between 1856 and 1871 during his exile in Guernsey. For Victor Hugo, I understand spatial imprinting in a psychological sense. He was so impressed by certain architectural spaces that he succeeded in expressing their effect in his own, often imagined room descriptions. With this article I want to show that Hugo was exposed to space imprinting from an early age. In the following years this was intellectually developed in connection with his monument preservation activities. He not only succeeded in precisely describing fictional or real spaces in his texts and novels, but also dynamized the architecture and architectural space.

German version:
Die Architektur und der architektonische Raum sind Themen, die Victor Hugo sowohl als Denkmalpfleger als auch als Literat beschäftigte. Denkmalpflege und Literatur, so kann festgestellt werden, sind bei ihm in gewisser Weise kommunizierende Gefäße. Zudem kann bei Victor Hugo von einer Raumprägung gesprochen werden, wobei damit nicht seine ‚Handschrift’ als Innendekorateur gemeint ist, wie sie beispielsweise in den Räumen in Hauteville House zu finden ist, das er zwischen 1856 und 1871 während seines Exils auf Guernsey bewohnte und dessen Innerem er ein unverwechselbares Gepräge zu geben vermochte. Raumprägung verstehe ich bei Victor Hugo in psychologischem Sinne. Von gewissen architektonischen Räumen wurde er in solcher Art und Weise beeindruckt, dass es ihm gelang, deren Wirkung in seinen eigenen, oft imaginierten Raumschilderungen veristischen Ausdruck zu verleihen.
Mit diesem Beitrag will ich aufzeigen, dass Hugo von frühester Kindheit an Raumprägungen ausgesetzt war. In den nachfolgenden Jahren wurden diese in Verbindung mit seiner denkmalpflegerischen Tätigkeit intellektuell weiterentwickelt. Es gelang ihm nicht nur, in seinen Texten und Romanen fiktionale oder reale Räume genau zu beschreiben, sondern auch die Architektur und den architektonischen Raum zu dynamisieren.

This essay discusses Hans Belting’s and Bernard Aikema’s recent studies on Giorgione’s Tempesta. The authors connect this enigmatic masterpiece with Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia, the Renaissance notion of a Golden Age and the debate on the origins of humanity, common in North European humanistic culture. Furthermore, it analyzes an illumination by Jean Bourdichon which seems to confirm the evocative link between Giorgione’s Tempesta and the nordic iconography of the Wild Man and his family, a symbol of an utopic escape from the corrupt social system, like the melancholic exile of poets-shepherds in Sannazaro’s Arcadia.

Brigitte Burrichter, Labirinti narrati e narrativa labirintica. Letteratura romanza del Medioevo e del Rinascimento

Il testo di Brigitte Burrichter si profila come uno degli studi più innovativi e originali nel panorama della romanistica internazionale contemporanea. Due sono i filoni principali dell’indagine: la descrizione di labirinti reali o mitici presenti nella letteratura latina classica e basso-imperiale e il relativo sviluppo prima come tropo nella letteratura patristica, poi come tecnica narrativa. La disamina circostanziata del materiale testuale e gli accurati riferimenti critici delineano le variazioni nella percezione del labirinto, individuandolo come tratto distintivo tra i più caratteristici e duraturi nelle letterature romanze prese in esame: francese, italiana e i suoi riverberi in quella spagnola.

(it & en)
I contenuti antiquariali prodotti dall'Accademia Romana di Pomponio Leto nel Quattrocento vengono rielaborati nel secolo successivo, in un nuovo contesto politico-culturale, dalla cerchia degli umanisti vicini al Polifilo, tra cui Evangelista Maddaleni Capodiferro. Autore quest'ultimo di un inedito poema latino in distici elegiaci (qui pubblicato e commentato), probabilmente ispirato ad una xilografia della Hypnerotomachia Poliphili e dedicato alla figura di Nevia. Personaggio che può rivestire diversi significati simbolici, sia politico-amorosi se riferito alla nipote dell'astrologo di Tiberio Ennia Nevia Trasilla (che sedusse Caligola favorendone l'ascesa al potere), sia topografico-militari per la possibile identificazione di Nevia con una delle porte di Roma.
    Tra i dedicatarî della Nevia di Capodiferro figura il card. Niccolò Ridolfi che ospitava gli antimedicei fiorentini nella propria biblioteca romana dove il busto di Bruto di Michelangelo Buonarroti costituiva un eloquente simbolo per i Repubblicani.

    Con una lettura congiunta di arte, politica e letteratura vengono quindi esaminate alcune note opere d'arte di Piero di Cosimo e Filippino Lippi. La Nevia di Capodiferro completa la conoscenza della Renovatio Urbis, riconnettendosi al concetto di «pax romana» ideato da Marc'Antonio Altieri.

ABSTRACT (en)
(English translation courtesy of Giulia Martina Weston)

Polysemantic Nevia and the myth of Brutus in the Renaissance

    The antiquarian content produced by Pomponio Leto's Roman Academy in the Fifteenth century was developed, during the following century, within the circle of the humanists close to Polifilo, in different political and cultural frameworks. Our analysis focus on an unpublished Latin manuscript written in elegiac couplet by Evangelista Maddaleni Capodiferro, possibly inspired by a woodcut of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and dedicated to the figure of Nevia, a character which could play several symbolic roles: a political and amorous one, when referred to the niece of the astrologer Tiberio, Ennia Nevia Trasilla, who abducted Caligola, favouring the rise of his career; and a topographic and military one, for Nevia's possible identification with one of the city gates of Rome.
    Featuring as Capodiferro's dedicatee in the Nevia, the figure of Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi hosted Anti-Medicean Florentines in his Roman library, which displayed the bust of Brutus, carved by Michelangelo Buonarroti, and acted as the Repubblicans' symbol.
    Throughout a symoultaneous reading of art, politics and literature, several renowed artworks by Piero di Cosimo and Filippino Lippi has been examined. Capodiferro's Nevia complements our knowledge of the Renovatio Urbis, being linked to the concept of «pax romana» conceived by Marc'Antonio Altieri.

The use of HP plates in various publications is based on the idea, widely accepted, that its author could have participated in one way or another in their engraving. There’s no evidence of that in any study, but there seems to have been some consensus over time. However, the study of the text finds errors in illustrations, and very often, at least, discrepancies. A double evidence appears quickly: not only is it impossible to know the intentions of the author without reading it exhaustively, but the recourse to the plates takes it away!

Sono state prese in esame le xilografie 49 e 50 dell’Hypnerotomachia Poliphili di Francesco Colonna, raffiguranti l’una il parto di Leda e la presentazione al padre delle due uova e l’altra l’oracolo di Apollo. Attraverso lo studio della loro iconografia che ha portato a identificare in una pianta la flammula caratterizzante un uovo di Leda, è stato individuato uno stretto legame con le rappresentazioni della Fortuna Primigenia di Praenestre (l’antica Palestrina, città di cui Francesco Colonna è signore), il leitmotiv del racconto dell’Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, l’iconografia cristiana e il Neoplatonismo, rilevando quindi una rilettura della cultura antica, attenta alla natura spiegata attraverso il mito, influenzata dal Cristianesimo e, nello stesso tempo, aperta a una nuova rinnovata attenzione verso l’uomo e il suo ambiente come riflesso dell’intellegibile.

English version (for German version see below):

The International Symposium “A Dialogue of the Arts” has a strong commitment to interdisciplinary, laying bear unusual or yet not discovered principles of order in art. The aspect of space and time in architecture has been introduced by Sigfried Giedion in his publication of 1941, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition.
The first symposium of 2010 was dedicated to descriptions of architecture in literature of Early modern period to the present. In the following symposiums, which took place every two years, the focus has continuously expanded, involving media such as film, photography and interior design. At the same time, the line of sight changed too, by embracing interior space and its relations to exterior architecture. Therewith a platform has been created, inciting new art historical methods and interpretations. The 5th International Symposium, which will take place on October 18 and 19, directs its intention towards the spatial turn, questioning time / space relations of architecture as described in literary texts of different genres like prose, poetry, travelogues, diaries as well as letters and other categories, enlarging thus the art historical theories of art history. The first aim of this Symposium is to carve out the dynamics of architecture, analyzing the role of the inhabitants, users and visitors in space acquisition and its narration in literature. By doing so, the traditionally given statics of architecture have to been discussed and negotiated. This leads to further qualities of space, exceeding the three-dimensionality, which had been instored by artists since the Renaissance. This specific scientific discourse has to enlarge methodology of Art History. Therefore, time / space relation in architecture from Early modern period to the present has to scrutinize descriptions of architecture in literature, disclosing thus new dimensions of space. The papers presented by senior researchers as well as junior scientist are multilingual in German, English, French and Italian.

German version:

Das Internationale Symposium „Ein Dialog der Künste“ hat sich der Interdisziplinarität verschrieben, um insbesondere ungewohnte oder noch nicht entdeckte Ordnungsprinzipien in der Kunst freizulegen. Die Raum/Zeit-Komponente in der Architektur wurde von Sigfried Giedion mit seiner Publikation von 1941, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition in die Forschung eingeführt. Stand beim ersten Symposium im Jahre 2010 allgemein die Beschreibung von Architektur in der Literatur von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zur Gegenwart im Vordergrund, so hatte sich in den folgenden Symposien, die alle zwei Jahre stattfinden, der Blickwechsel stetig erweitert. Einbezogen wurden in der Folge weitere Medien wie Film, Fotografie und Raumkunst. Aber auch die Blickrichtung änderte sich mit dem Einbezug der Raumgestaltung sowie der Untersuchung ihrer Bezüge zur Raumhülle. Damit wurde eine Plattform geschaffen für wissenschaftliche Forschungen anderer Art mit neuen kunsthistorischen Methoden und Interpretationen. Das 5. Symposium wendet sich unter diesen Prämissen dem spatial turn zu, um die Raum/Zeit-Dimension von Architektur und ihre Beschreibung in den verschiedensten Gattungen von Literatur wie Prosa, Poesie, Reiseberichte, Tagebücher, Briefe und weitere Kategorien zu untersuchen und so zur Erweiterung der kunstgeschichtlichen Wissenschaftstheorie beizutragen. Insbesondere geht es darum, das Dynamische der Architektur herauszuarbeiten, und zwar mithilfe der Bewohner / Benutzer / Besucher, die durch ihre Raumergreifung, ihre Beobachtungen und deren Schilderungen in der Literatur das scheinbar Statische der Architektur überwinden und dem Raum weitere Dimensionen verleihen. Die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung soll in diesem Sinne zu einer methodologischen Neuausrichtung der Kunstgeschichte beitragen. Der Raum/Zeit-Begriff seit der Frühen Neuzeit bis heute soll hinterfragt werden und anhand der Beschreibungen von Architektur in der Literatur in neue Dimensionen ausgeweitet werden. Die Präsentationen der Nachwuchswissenschaftler und der Senior researchers am Symposium sind mehrsprachig und erfolgen in Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch und Italienisch.

Francesco Colonna in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (in English “Poliphilo’s Strife of Love in a Dream”, a romance printed in Venice in 1499), gives a fresco of ancient culture through mythological stories connected to a tale revolves around the theme of love. The result is a view of a man that lives between 15th and 16th century, with his cultural background.
In this paper, I illustrate two opposite interpretations of love represented in the xylography 50 that reproduces a carved relief on the Leda’s chariot.