Venice: Aldus Manutius, Romanus, for Leonardus Crassus, December 1499

The eccentric romance Hypnerotomachia Poliphili tells the tale of Poliphilo’s voyage to Kythera, the island of love, in search of his beloved Polia. Exhausted, Poliphilo falls asleep, and the search for Polia continues in the dream world. The title is almost untranslatable, as is much of the text, but is perhaps best expressed as Poliphilo’s strife of love in a dream. Authorship of the work is still uncertain, but it is most commonly attributed to one Francesco Colonna, a Dominican Friar in the convent of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. The Cambridge copy belonged to Sisto Medici (1501/02-1561), a friar at the same convent. Medici was so moved by the Hypnerotomachia that at the age of sixteen he composed a sonnet, Young Sisto Medici to his most elegant Book. A translation of this poem can be seen by clicking ‘Extended captions’ below.

Inc.3.B.3.134[1830], fol. [pi]1 recto