The book that inspired The Rule of Four—discover the secret codes of the best-selling novel!

One of the most famous books in the world, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, read by every Renaissance intellectual and referred to in studies of art and culture ever since, was first published in English by Thames & Hudson in 1999.

It is a strange, pagan, pedantic, erotic, allegorical, mythological romance relating in highly stylized Italian the quest of Poliphilo for his beloved Polia. The author (presumed to be Francesco Colonna, a friar of dubious reputation) was obsessed by architecture, landscape, and costume—it is not going too far to say sexually obsessed—and its 174 woodcuts are a primary source for Renaissance ideas on both buildings and gardens.

In 1592 an attempt was made to produce an English version but the translator gave up. The task has been triumphantly accomplished by Joscelyn Godwin, who succeeds in reproducing all its wayward charm and arcane learning in language accessible to the modern reader. 174 illustrations.

Francesco Colonna (1433(?) – 1527), was an Italian Dominican priest and monk who was credited with the authorship of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili by an acrostic in the text.

Little is known of Colonna. He lived in Venice, and preached at St. Mark's Cathedral. Besides Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, he definitely wrote an Italian epic poem called Delfili Somnium, the "Dream of Delfilo"; this poem went unpublished in his lifetime and was not in fact published until 1959. Colonna spent part of his life in the monastery of St. John and St. Paul in Venice, but the monastery was apparently not of the strictest observance and Colonna was granted leave to live outside its walls. In Ian Caldwell's and Dustin Thomason's book, The Rule of Four, Francesco Colonna is said to be a Roman, rather than a monk and the true author of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.