Artistic Identity in the (Dream of) Poliphilo‪.‬

The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, or Strife of Love in a Dream of Poliphilo as the title has been translated into English, is one of the most famous yet puzzling products of the Aldine press. Despite an enormous scholarly literature, the identities of the author and artists of this intentionally hermetic book remain greatly debated. (1) Indeed, because the Poliphilo is the only extensively illustrated book printed by the press, and because of the unscholarly, somewhat scandalous nature of the text, it has been argued that Aldus could hardly have had much to do with its initial publication in 1499. (2) The Poliphilo, nevertheless, remains one of the central monuments of the Renaissance, and many of its 172 anonymous woodcut illustrations have been cited as sources for important motifs in painting and sculpture from the Renaissance through Baroque eras in Venice and throughout Europe (figs. 1 and 2). (3) Over the past 100 years, historians have attributed the Poliphilo woodcuts to many different artists, including the painters Bonconsigli, Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, Botticelli, Bartolomeo and Benedetto Montagna, Palma Vecchio, Cima da Conegliano, Franco Francia, Titian, Benozzo Gozzoli and Pinturricchio, and Agabiti; the medalists Peregrini and Sperandio; the printmakers Giulio Campagnola, Jacopo de' Barbari, an anonymous `Dolphin Master;' and the miniaturists the `Second Grifo Master' and Benedetto Bordon. (4) Attempts to attribute the woodcuts to an artist clearly bring into question the efficacy of stylistic analysis for artistic attribution in this book.