[COLONNA, Francesco (d. 1527)]. Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du songe de Poliphile. Anonymous translation from Latin into French, edited by Jean Martin. Paris: Louis Blaublom for Jacques Kerver, 20 August 1546.
[COLONNA, Francesco (d. 1527)]. Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du songe de Poliphile. Anonymous translation from Latin into French, edited by Jean Martin. Paris: Louis Blaublom for Jacques Kerver, 20 August 1546.

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[COLONNA, Francesco (d. 1527)]. Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du songe de Poliphile. Anonymous translation from Latin into French, edited by Jean Martin. Paris: Louis Blaublom for Jacques Kerver, 20 August 1546.

2o (300 x 190 mm). Roman, italic, Greek and Hebrew types, woodcut Arabic. Title within woodcut border with putti, male and female terminal figures and grotesques, signed with Kerver's initials in three places, Blaublom's two-turtle device at bottom; 181 woodcut illustrations in various sizes, 13 full-page, including a group of tombstones with typeset text inserted; woodcut 9-line arabesque initials composing an acrostic including Colonna's name; Kerver's device (Renouard 513) on recto of last leaf. (Uniform browning throughout, washed, a number of leaves with marginal paper repairs, affecting a few letters of text or sidenotes in about a dozen leaves, the affected areas touched up in neat ink facsimile, Aa6 with repair affecting several words, D3 torn and repaired and with woodcut initial apparently removed and replaced with skilful ink facsimile of the initial and the affected words on verso.) 18th-century French catspaw calf, spine gilt, edges stained red (minor old repairs to board edges and head and tail of spine).

FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH. The woodcuts of Kerver's edition are freely adapted from the somewhat sparer cuts of the Aldine editions of 1499 and 1545, with a number of modifications typical of the French Renaissance style, including modelling, swirling drapery, and more lavish landscapes. Fourteen new illustrations of topiary, formal gardens, and architectural details are added. At least four different styles can be discerned in the woodcuts, but no artist has been positively identified, although Jean Goujon has been mentioned. Fairfax Murray French 99; Harvard/Mortimer French 145.

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