Leon Battista Alberti's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: Re-Cognizing the Architectural Body in the Early Italian Renaissance

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Summary: Alberti wrote the Hypnerotomachia??
Review: Lefaivre aims to demonstrate that one of the most fascinating works of the Italian Renaissance, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was the work of one of that era's most intriguing personalities, the architect and writer Leon Battista Alberti. She bases her claim on the volume and quality of architectural discussion and comment in the Hypnerotomachia, which she argues could only have been written by a learned architect with a flair for literature. Moreover, she shows that several coinages of Alberti's, rarely if ever found in works other than his, are incorporated into the text. Lefaivre states her case with verve and conviction, but there are just too few known facts to make it water-tight. Besides, there are arguments at least as strong, if not stronger, in support of other candidates for the work's authorship. Most authorities, such as the editors of a recent Italian edition of the Hypnerotomachia remain of the opinion that the book was the work of Francesco Colonna, a wayward Dominican monk of Venetian origin. Nevertheless, Lefaivre animates her subjects and writes of them with intelligence and passion: that her central thesis is likely wrong does not detract from her book's charm. The MIT Press have done her proud, the book being beautifully designed, laid out, illustrated and printed. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!!
Review: Lefaivre has not written modestly. Good for her! In making the claims she does, she needs a very powerful rhetoric that can persuade and dissuade simultaneously. Her concentration on the erotic dimension of the Hypnerotomachia is persuasive as is her description of the proto-feminist voice of Polia. This is the best introduction to the text available even if some will not be won over by the argument for the geneology of the text. Kudos to Lefaivre!!!

Some of the illustrations were not worth including in the book (30 h and j) because they are so very dark they just look like gray boxes. For a book so persuading of the beauty and erotic, it hardly seems fair to have placed such illustrations here. Perhaps it just adds to the plaisir du texte, not knowing what is behind the smudge. Maybe it is Polia or Poliphili, maybe even Alberti, in the buff. It certainly calls for the reader to suspend disbelief. Otherwise the physical look of the book is fine quality.