“Not before either known or dreamt of”: The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the craft of wonder

Abstract

The multiple readings of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili have led scholars to compare the text to one of the most enigmatic of sixteenth-century Italian gardens, Vicino Orsini’s Sacro Bosco at Bomarzo, with one author tracing the similarity to the Dalmatian philosopher Francesco Patrizi’s poetics of wonderment. Wonderment, however, was also an indispensable tool of monastic meditation practices that incorporated an art of memory. This essay argues that the similarity between the garden and the text is due to the fact that both reject the principle of Aristotelian mimesis and insist on wonderment either as the ultimate goal of the poet or as the monk’s indispensable tool for meditation