Songe De Poliphile (Le)

H Carre Hermes Paris > Fall - Winter 1998 / 99

The Dream of Polyphilus

So what is this "Hypnerotomachia Polyphilii", in which the pen of Francesco Colonna, at the end of the15th century, traces the allegorical journey of two lovers who set out in search of Venus? A mixture of courtly romance, esoteric manual, gardening handbook and mythological reverie, from which the reader emerges, telling himself from now on, whenever he sees a sycamore: "He and I are brothers, both of us, two sons incarnated by the same divine dream."