Lot 63: [COLONNA, FRANCESCO]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Le tableau des riches inventions couvertes du voiles des feintes amoureuses qui sont representees dans le Songe de Poliphile (edited by François Béroalde de Verville). Paris: Matthieu Guillemot, 1600 [but after 1610]

4to (248 x 180mm.), elaborate engraved title-page, woodcut initials and headpieces, numerous woodcut illustrations mostly taken from the 1546 Kerver edition, contemporary vellum, lacking *****4 (blank), browning throughout, a few leaves becoming loose, some full-page woodcuts shaved, binding worn at edges

Mellon 57; Mortimer, Harvard French, 148

Conte de Jugenheim, inscription on flyleaf

Third edition of Béroalde's French version, with only very slight variation from the first and second editions (all with the same engraved title-page). The first famous publication of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was by Aldus Manutius in 1499, and in this edition Béroalde draws out the hermetical and alchemical nature of the text.