Hermetica Poliphili

Matthew D. Rogers

You see, Asclepius: it is as if I had been telling you all this in your sleep.
What is the world, really?
— “Hermes Trismegistus,” Asclepius 36

There is no ambition here to present “the key” to that enigmatic literary feat of the
Italian Renaissance Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. That text has been far more viewed
than read, on account of its innovative printing and beautiful illustrations in the
former case, as well as its obscure language in the latter. But the Hypnerotomachia
compels respect through its novelty and complexity. The excitement of bringing
ordered patterns out of this mysterious fantasia can induce a feeling of godlike
potency, but it is important to distinguish between creation and discovery. As its
translator Jocelyn Godwin remarks, explicators “should be wary of inflating a pet
theory to cosmic dimensions, forcing the facts to inhabit a Procrustean bed,” and he
aptly calls such strategies “the occupational hazard of esoteric studies,” to be
countered by academic method.1 Although there may be fascinating autobiographical
and/or allegorical dimensions to the book, to reduce it to an expression of a single
formula would diminish rather than enrich appreciation for a work that has been
compared to Dante’s Divine Comedy2 and Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.3 Nevertheless,
as the Hypnerotomachia writer was at pains to display his erudition, the reader cannot
be faulted for an interest in his sources.

At least seven different authors have been credited with having written the
superficially anonymous Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.4 I am persuaded that the long-
standing attribution of authorship to the monk Francesco Colonna is entirely feasible,
and that it benefits from a parsimony that is absent in rival theories. Yet there is

1
Godwin 2002, p. 50.
2
Op. cit. p. 23; also Fierz-David 1950, p. 171.
3
Painter 1973, p. 6.
4
A list of putative authors and their champions is given in Godwin 1999, pp. xiii-xiv. Lefaivre 1997
criticizes attributions to Fr. Francesco Colonna of Treviso and Prince Francesco Colonna of Palestrina
in chapter 4, and defends attribution to Leon Battista Alberti in chapter 5.
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

nothing special about Colonna’s biography that relates to the material of the present
reflections. Out of deference to the industriousness and ingenuity of those who have
worked on alternative theories of authorship, I will abstain from any further
references to Colonna in the matter at hand, leaving readers to associate my remarks
with the author that they feel the Hypnerotomachia most deserves. These researches
require only that the book have been written in the area of Treviso and/or Venice in
the period from 1467 to 1499. The latter date is the book’s first publication, and the
earlier one is the significant date of Poliphilo’s awakening at the end of the text.
Although many readers have concluded from the explicit in the text that the book
must have been finished in 1467, nothing compels such a conclusion, and some clues
suggest that there must at least have been revisions later than that date. For example,
the dolphin and anchor insignia that Poliphilo sees on his first arrival among the
dream ruins5 is based on an antique coin given by Peitro Bembo to the book’s printer
Aldus Manutius in 1490.6 (Figure 2.) Godwin also references research indicating that
passages regarding the Pyramid and the Temple of Venus must have been composed
subsequent to 1489.7

Linda Fierz-David considers that the sonorous Greek title Hypnerotomachia

Poliphili was intended to indicate profound antiquity. 8 But the form of the title was
simultaneously an antique and a contemporary reference in 1499. The antique
reference was to the Batrachomyomachia, a classical Homeric burlesque, and the
contemporary reference was to Podromus’ Galeomyomachia, a late Byzantine text
that had been issued by Aldus in 1495, only four years before he printed the
Hypnerotomachia.9 Interestingly, the precedent of these earlier titles suggests that a
superior translation of the word hypnerotomachia might be “the battle between sleep

5
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, p. 69, d7. For ease of use, Hypnerotomachia references in the present
paper include both the page number from Godwin’s 1999 English translation, and the signature
notation customarily used to reference the original edition and its facsimiles.
6
Painter 1973, p. 20.
7
Godwin 1999, p. xiii..
8
Fierz-David 1950, p. 1.
9
Painter 1973, pp. 18-19.

2
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

and love,” which is certainly the setting for the protagonist Poliphilo at the beginning
of the story, as he complains of his lovelorn insomnia.10

To date, there appears to have been little scholarly consideration of the

influence of the texts known as “philosophical Hermetica” on the Hypnerotomachia.
This omission may derive largely from the dating issue, with a good example of this
reasoning being Ioan P. Couliano’s conclusion that “the work is external to the current
of ideas circulated by Marsilio Ficino beginning more or less in 1463,” since
“[Ficino’s] reputation did not reach Treviso from Florence before 1467.”11 Yet
Ficino’s Hermetic translations and his philosophy were certainly well known in both
Treviso and Venice by 1499. Frances Yates’ famous study Giordano Bruno and the
Hermetic Tradition asserted that these Hermetica were the fons et origo of Bruno’s
extraordinary philosophical mission. Somewhat less ambitiously, I hope to establish
that there was an active interest in Hermetic philosophy expressed in the
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Furthermore, it is possible in the present instance to
sidestep the dating issue by focusing more narrowly on a Hermetic text that was
available in Latin prior to Ficino’s labors, the Asclepius. This Hermetic treatise was
circulated in the Middle Ages, and enjoyed significant popularity among Christian
intellectuals as early as the 12th century.12

APULEIUS THE HERMETIST

The proximity of the Hypnerotomachia to the Asclepius is partly evident from

Poliphilo’s debts to Apuleius of Madaura, the reputed translator of the Asclepius.
Since the 9th century, readers of the Asclepius believed that its original translator from
Greek into Latin had been the North African intellectual Apuleius. 13 Apuleius’ largest

10
Contrast the author’s explanation, “the strife of love in a dream,” (la chiama pugna damor in lŏno.)
Hypnerotomachia, p. 5, 3.
11
Couliano, pp. 40-41, 231.
12
Yates 1964, p. 13 n.
13
Yates 1964, p. 3. Vincent Hunink still wants to keep open the possibility of Apuleius’ actual
involvement in the text of the Asclepius, despite the near-total disfavor of such a theory among
contemporary scholars. Hunink 1996, pp. 288-308.

3
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

and most famed work was his Metamorphoses, widely circulated in manuscript, but
first published in 1469 as a work of Platonist philosophy.14

There can be no question that the Metamorphoses of Apuleius was hugely

influential on the composition of the Hypnerotomachia. The narratives of antique
religion and mystery cults in The Golden Ass (as the Metamorphoses is often titled)
certainly must have been inspiration, if not direct models, for the ritual elements
described by Poliphilo, from the procession of triumphs to the marriage rite. Fierz-
David notes how the rose-fetters of Polia and Poliphilo correspond to the rose-wreath
that restores Lucius to human form, and how Poliphilo is given a white robe just like
Lucius.15 There are a number of very direct allusions to Apuleius’ text, including
references to the love of Cupid and Psyche, and a representation of them as already
married, as a sequel to their adventures recounted in the Metamorphoses.16 The
nymphs of the five senses sing a song to Poliphilo that recounts Lucius’
transformation into an ass.17 In the story of Poliphilo’s first becoming enamored of
Polia, the two are compared explicitly to Apuleius’ Lucius and Fotis. 18 In his
translator’s introduction to the Hypnerotomachia, Godwin calls the Golden Ass “one
of the most direct ancestors of the Hypnerotomachia,” and he points to Apuleius as a
“most abundant source” for Poliphilo’s Latin vocabulary.19 Indeed, the peculiar
pedantesca Italian of Poliphilo may have been inspired by Apuleius in the
Metamorphoses, who wrote (according to his Renaissance English translator William
Adlington)

in so dark and high a style, in so strange and absurd words and in such new
invented phrases, as he seemed rather to set it forth to show his magnificent
prose than to participate his doings to others. 20

Yet another point of stylistic similarity between Apuleius and Poliphilo is the ubiquity
of “intrusions of extended metaphors, literary, mythical and historical exempla and

14
Wind 1958, p. 189.
15
Fierz-David 1950, p. 178; comparing Hypnerotomachia, p. 341, x7 to Apulieus, Golden Ass XI; and
comparing Hypnerotomachia, p. 367, z4 to Apulieus, Golden Ass XI.
16
Hypnerotomachia, pp. 143, i4, and 338-2, x5’-x7’; alluding to Apulieus, Golden Ass , VI.
17
Hypnerotomachia, p. 86, e7’.
18
Op. cit., p. 386, A3’ and p. 453, E5; compare Apuleius, Golden Ass II, 7-9.
19
Godwin 1999, p. x.
20
Adlington 1566, p. xv.

4
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

literary quotations.”21 These pervasive rhetorical interruptions were characteristic of

the Second Sophistic movement among Greek intellectuals of Apuleius’ time, by
whose trends he was clearly influenced. And these accretive stylings were in large
part a reflection of the Second Sophistic “cult of the past,” a school of nostalgia for
which Poliphilo should have been eligible more than a millennium afterwards. 22

In Apuleius’ Apology, composed as his defense against charges of sorcery, he

admits to possessing and reverencing a figure of the god Mercury or Hermes. 23 While
this admission may have helped to clear him among his contemporaries of a charge
that he blasphemously worshipped a “horrible statuette,” it can only have cemented
the later idea that Apuleius was a magician employing the very teachings of the
Asclepius, in which the instructor is Hermes Trismegistus, who also identifies himself
as a descendent of the primary Hermes who had been euhemerized in Egypt.24

While late medieval and early modern thinkers understood the Asclepius and
other Hermetica to have been written by Trismegistus himself many centuries before
the Christian era, we now understand them to have been pseudepigrapha composed
mostly in the second and third centuries C.E. Some of the best dating evidence for
composition of Hermetic texts pertains to the Logos telios (“Perfect Discourse”) that
was the Greek original of the Asclepius.25 In that case, it appears to have been written
well into the third century, probably a long while after the death of the second century
Apuleius.26 The points of similarity between Apuleius and the Hermetica may have to
do with the contemporaneity of their origins, and in the specific case of the Asclepius,
their shared dependence on Platonic philosophies for which Apuleius was an earlier
representative.27

The Renaissance saw a significant modification of the then-reasonable (though

likely mistaken) view in which Apuleius learned pagan magic from the teachings of
Hermes. In order to redeem the prisca theologia merit of Hermes Trismegistus in

21
Sandy 1997, p. 125.
22
Ibid., pp. 49-50, 88-91.
23
Apulieus, Apology (Pro Se De Magia), 61-65; in Rhetorical Works 2001, pp. 83-88.
24
Asclepius 37.
25
For details on the dating of the Asclepius, see Copenhaver 1992, pp. xliii-xliv.
26
For the dating of Apuleius’ life and career, see Sandy 1997, pp. 1-6.
27
For Apuleius as Philosophus Platonicus, see Sandy 1997, pp. 22-26, 135, & 213-222.

5
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

Christian discourse, Apuleius was scapegoated as the bad magician who had
corrupted the pure Hermetic Asclepius by inserting the idolatry and other magical
elements of the text. Symphorien Champier of Lyons was the first to propose this
explanation.28 But Champier circulated that rationale in his De Triplici Disciplina,
not published until 1508, well after the Hypnerotomachia.29 For someone with the
demonstrated interests of the Hypnerotomachia author, there would be an inherent
attraction to the simpler thesis that Apuleius was a later adherent of the universal
magical religion described in the Hermetica.

The author of Poliphilo may even have been such an avid student of Apuleius,
that the latter influenced the book’s title and central theme. In De Deo Socratis
Apuleius undertakes a rhetorical exposition of a Platonist doctrine of intermediary
spirits. Next to the presiding guardian spirit of each man’s life, Apuleius discusses a
class of important demons governing human functions, and he exclusively addresses
Sleep and Love (Somnus et Amor) as preeminent members of this class. He also
observes their essential antagonism towards one another.30

THE GODS OF POLIPHILO

A striking feature of the Hypnerotomachia is the presence of the pagan gods

of antiquity; they are invoked and revered, and some of them appear in person. There
are two different but overlapping senses in which the gods are referenced. In one
sense, primarily associated with the second and shorter of the two books in the single
volume of the Hypnerotomachia, the gods serve as a “cover” and hypostasis for
Christian religious sensibilities. For example, Diana is a figure who can account for
the devout chastity of Polia, without introducing a Christian element to disrupt
Poliphilo’s dream and return him to the waking world of his troubled love. 31 Gods
that are included in this sense do not actually manifest personally to the dreamer, and
are never pictured in the illustrations, but serve as rhetorical and symbolic references
only.

28
Yates 1965, p. 172.
29
Walker 1954, pp. 234-9.
30
Apulieus, De Deo Socratis 154-155; in Rhetorical Works 2001, p. 208.
31
Hypnerotomachia, p. 388, A4’.

6
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

Jupiter does sometimes serve in this first sense. In a troubled point of the
dream, Poliphilo invokes Jupiter as Maximo, Optimo, & Omnipotente, & Opitulo, in a
plea to what would otherwise be directed to the providential aspect of the Christian
godhead.32 And in Book Two, Poliphilo even alludes to optimo & maximo Ioue
humanato, “Jupiter, greatest and best, made man,” as a circumlocution for Jesus
Christ.33 But Jupiter also serves in the second sense of Poliphilo’s gods, in which
they attempt to manifest genuine pre-Christian religious ideas. And in the most
important of these cases, they consistently have reference in the Asclepius. So we also
find Jupiter as a procreative, metamorphic spirit, whose erotic encounters are
displayed on the triumphal chariots and on some of the carvings on the great portal
through which Poliphilo enters the idyllic inner realm of his dreamworld.34 This
Jupiter is the one who appears in the Asclepius, as “the ousiarchēs of heaven … for
Jupiter supplies life through heaven to all things.” 35

When Poliphilo explores the funerary monuments in and around a ruined

coastal temple, he descends into an underground chamber, where he discovers an altar
with the inscription INTERNO PLOTONI TRICORPORI ET CARAE OXORI
PROSERPINAE TRIPCIPITIQ.CERBERO.36 Fierz-David notes that the designation
of Pluto as being “within” ambivalently refers to the interior of the altar or the interior
of human consciousness.37 But the Asclepius indicates a third alternative, where
Hades is invisibly enthroned within the spherical earth.38 A harmonious reading for
Pluto per se is available later in the Asclepius, where there is a distinction between
Jupiter above the earth, and “Jupiter Plutonius” upon the earth.39 Pluto, beneath or
within the earth, would then be the complementary term to Jupiter, for which pair
Jupiter Plutonius is the median.

The Asclepius distinguishes between the intelligible ousiarchai or noumenal,

hypercosmic gods, and the “sensible gods” subordinate to them. These lesser gods
32
Op. cit., p. 15, a4.
33
Op. cit., p. 386, A3’.
34
Op. cit., pp. 158-177, k3’-l5 and 52, c6’.
35
“ est Iuppiter; per caelum enim Iuppiter omnibus praebet vitam.” Asclepius 19.
36
Hypnerotomachia, pp. 247-8, p8-8’.
37
Fierz-David 1950, p. 156.
38
Asclepius 17; see also Copenhaver 1992, pp. 229-230 for a note on variant readings.
39
Asclepius 27.

7
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

include the Sun (under the ousiarchēs Light) and the Planets (under the ousiarchai
Fortune and Heimarmenē).40 These celestial gods of the phenomenal world are also
acknowledged in the Hypnerotomachia. The obelisk on the pyramid-portal in the
outer dream country is “dedicated to the sovereign Sun.”41 Queen Eleuterylida’s
palace prominently features “the seven planets with their innate qualities … seven
triumphs of the subjects ruled by the planets … seven harmonies of the planets, and
… an incredible representation of the celestial operations.”42

The dominant gods of the Hypnerotomachia are certainly Venus and Cupid. It
is they who manifest corporeally and who personally cater to the dream-union of
Poliphilo and Polia. The first “exquisite and remarkable fountain” encountered by
Poliphilo is inscribed to Venus as (“The Mother of All”).43
Venus and her son preside over the Cytherean Isle, and the mystic procession there is
conducted in their honor.44 And these divinities are not foreign to the Asclepius.
Hermes Trismegistus recognizes them as

Not only god, but all things ensouled and soulless, for it is impossible for
any of the things that are to be infertile. […] For each sex is full of
fecundity, and the linking of the two, or more accurately, their union is
incomprehensible. If you call it Cupid or Venus or both, you will be
correct.45

The author of Poliphilo would also have ample reason to identify Venus with
the Isis of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, as Apuleius makes the connection explicit.46
Thus Isis (as the Great Mother Venus) can be understood to be the presiding genius of
both The Golden Ass and the Hypnerotomachia. And it is Isis of all the Egyptian gods
whose powers are most clearly acknowledged in the Asclepius discussion of the
origins of religion:

40
Asclepius 19.
41
“Al summo Sole quello dedicato.” Hypnerotomachia, p. 28, b2’.
42
Op. cit., p. 95, f4.
43
Op. cit., pp. 68, 72-73, d6’, d8’-e1.
44
Op. cit., 326-346, u7’-y1’.
45
Asclepius 21; translation from Copenhaver 1992, p. 79.
46
Metamorphoses XI (Isis-Book) 26, 16-17; pp. 74-75.

8
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

Isis, wife of Osiris: we know how much good she can do when well
disposed, when angered how much harm!47

AN EGYPTIAN DREAM OF THE RENAISSANCE

One of the most notable features of the Asclepius is its praise for Egyptian
religion and learning, and its prophecy of their decline and extinction.48 Modern
scholarship informs us that the prophecy was a literary conceit, through which the
author of the Asclepius could lament a degradation of Egyptian culture that had
already occurred when the Hermetica were written.49 But the Hypnerotomachia
provides a complement to the doom foretold by Trismegistus, in which Poliphilo’s
nostalgia for the achievements of classical civilizations is expressed as admiration for
the arts of Egypt actually present in his dream.

As with so much of the Hypnerotomachia, these arts are largely indicated

through architecture. The great stepped pyramid early in the dream50 (Figure 1.) has
led Brian A. Curran to conclude that Poliphilo’s author must have actively consulted
contemporary descriptions of Egyptian pyramids.51 Besides the obelisk that crowns
that pyramid, there is the elephant-obelisk with its authentic-appearing
hieroglyphics,52 and the “mysterious thing”53 of the Queen’s garden, with its
pyramidal obelisk supported by sphinxes, or a threefold “Egyptian monster.”54
(Figures 3 & 4.) During the 15th century, there were at least three Egyptian obelisks
standing in Rome which could have provided inspiration and descriptive material for
Poliphilo’s author.55 Poliphilo also compares the temple of Venus Physizoa to “the
Apis temple of Egyptian Psammeticus.”56

47
Asclepius 37; translation from Copenhaver 1992, p. 90.
48
Asclepius 24-27.
49
Copenhaver 1992, pp. 238-240 provides a condensed summary of research on the “Apocalypse” of
the Asclepius and various arguments for its dating, along with possible literary antecedents.
50
Hypnerotomachia, pp. 22-30, a7’-b3’.
51
Curran 1998, p. 176.
52
Hypnerotomachia, p. 36-39, b6-b7’.
53
“mysteriosamente”: Hypnerotomachia, p. 128, h4’.
54
“monstro ægyptio”: Hypnerotomachia, p. 129, h5.
55
Curran 1998, pp. 156-7.
56
“tale ad Api Deo, Sannitico aegyptio”: Hypnerotomachia, p. 208, n5.

9
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

While a 21st-century reader might view the Egyptian elements as a

heterogeneous minority among the Roman and Greek classical styles of Poliphilo’s
dream, a Renaissance thinker would have seen them as different elements in a single
continuum. According to Martin Bernal’s contentious Black Athena, prior to the late
18th century, Europeans saw Egypt as the wellspring of the course of civilization
proceeding through Greece into Rome. This “Ancient Model” of the origins of
classical civilization was premised upon claims in classical literature itself, including
writings of Aeschylus, Euripides, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Isocrates, and
others.57 Although numbered among them, the Asclepius would have been the least of
such influences. Writing in 1498, the Dominican Giovanni Nanni implicitly
acknowledged the Ancient Model by proposing a modification in which civilization
had been transferred directly from Egypt to Italy, without passing through Greek
culture. Marsilio Ficino’s student Angelo Poliziano (1437-1497) gave lectures in
Venice regarding the gods of ancient Egypt, which Poliphilo’s author might even
have attended.58 The Hypnerotomachia was an notable contribution to the “Golden
Age of Egyptophilia” in the Renaissance,59 and it fueled the Egyptomania of the
period with respect to both architecture and hieroglyphics. 60

The strange symbols or emblems engraved on various pieces of architecture in

the Hypnerotomachia are represented as nothing other than “Egyptian hieroglyphs,”
as Poliphilo indicates explicitly. 61 But as with the Egyptian references generally, it is
important to appreciate what hieroglyphics (literally, “sacred carvings”) meant for a
late 15th century Italian. There had been a surge of interest in Egyptian monuments
and hieroglyphs among Italian intellectuals in the early 15 th century.62 The

57
Bernal 2001, pp. 3-4, summarizing Bernal 1987. Note that Bernal differentiates his historiographic
summary of the “Ancient Model” from his own controversial “Revised Ancient Model,” which uses
philological and archaeological materials to make claims for “the Afroasiatic roots of classical
civilization.” Writing in response to voluminous criticism of his works, Bernal observes that critics of
his historiography are “unable to cite any doubt from Medieval or Renaissance sources that the Greeks
had derived their wisdom and philosophy from ‘Egypt and the Orient.’” (Bernal 2001, p. 171)
58
Iversen 1961, p. 62.
59
Assman 1997, pp. 17-18.
60
Hornung 1999, pp. 92-93.
61
“hieraglyphi ægyptici”: Hypnerotomachia, pp. 69 & 261, d7 & q7.
62
Curran 1998, p. 156.

10
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

hieroglyphic writing of ancient Egypt was understood by Renaissance neo-Platonists

like Marsilio Ficino to be a pictorial method of representing pure and complete ideas,
rather than discursive significations.63 For Leon Battista Alberti and others,
hieroglyphics were an alternative to alphabetical writing, preferred by the ancients for
their ability to reveal meaning directly to the intuition of an intellectual, without the
need for common letters or vocabulary. 64 And even before its first publication in
1505, the authoritative text on this topic for Renaissance Italians was The
Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Niliacus. It was the only available treatise on the topic
that had survived from antiquity, and it was circulated widely in manuscript. A copy
in Florence was annotated as having been purchased in 1419.65 Although the
Hypnerotomachia includes many glyphs and interpretations not found in “Horapollo,”
the overall approach to their interpretation is consistent with the examples given in the
latter. In his discussion of Egyptian hieroglyphics in De Pretum (1435), Alberti cited
the Asclepius,66 and no one who looked to the Hermetica as a guide to ancient lore
could fail to note how they describe the final legacy of Egypt: “Only words cut in
stone will survive to tell your faithful works.” 67

STATUES ENSOULED

Another conspicuous aspect of the Asclepius, and the one which most lent it to
theological controversy, is its account of magical idolatry and “the art of making
gods.”68 According to Hermes Trismegistus, the ancient Egyptians used magic to
make spirits inhabit the statues of their gods, thus producing “ensouled and
conscious” idols with the ability to act mightily, to prognosticate, and to confer
fortune and misfortune.69

63
Boas 1950, p. 28.
64
Curran 1998, pp. 158-160.
65
Boas 1950, p. 27, regarding a copy consulted in 1940.
66
Curran 1998, p. 179.
67
“solaque supererunt verba lapidibus incisa tua pia facta narrantibus”: Asclepius 24.
68
“artem qua efficierent deos”: Asclepius 37.
69
Asclepius 36, 24.

11
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

The sculpture of the Madonna Venus and her Child Cupid in the Cytherean
garden seems to be just such a statue.70 (Figure 6.) Their companion nymphs inform
Poliphilo and Polia of the festival dates on which “the divine Mother comes here with
her beloved son,” to preside over rites in honor of Adonis. The foot of the statue,
which the nymphal company kiss, is identified with the foot of the officiating
goddess,71 so that Poliphilo and his readers are encouraged to imagine the statues,
“miraculous to look upon, wanting only the breath of life!” 72 as becoming magically
animate with the spirits of Venus and Cupid. Regarding the efficacy of the idol-
goddess in the lives of her worshippers, a companion nymph explains, “And at such a
time it is easy to obtain her grace.”73

Apuleius’ Metamorphoses provided some further examples of idolatry and

magical statues for Poliphilo’s author, to accompany the theory of the Asclepius.
Lucius carries the idol of the Syrian goddess in Book VIII; and in the Isis cult of Book
XI, the sacred images process from and return to the temple. In an early premonition
of his magical adventures, Apuleius’ Lucius reflects:

And I further thought that the statues and images would by and by move,
and that the walls would talk, and the kine and other brute beasts would
speak and tell strange news, and that immediately I should hear some oracle
from the heaven and from the ray of the sun. 74

There are other very clear examples of magical statues in the

Hypnerotomachia. The “four triumphant six-yoked chariots” of Poliphilo’s dream
include very explicit depictions of interactions with oracular statues. On the chariot
bearing the triumph of Leda, the left-hand panel shows how worshippers “devoutly
asked at the divine statue in Apollo’s temple for an oracle.”75 (Figure 7.) And on the
chariot of triumphant Danaë, the right-hand panel shows a king “praying to the statue

70
Hypnerotomachia, pp. 372-377, z7-z9. Could Poliphilo’s author have known of the very similar
Egyptian images of Isis suckling Horus, for a further syncretism in the image of goddess and her son?
The enthroned nursing pose for the goddess is not a customary one for Venus or Aphrodite, but it is a
standard presentation of Isis.
71
Op. cit., p. 376, z8’.
72
“da contemplare miraculosa. Solamente del spirito uitale diminuta.” Hypnerotomachia, p. 373, z7’.
73
“Et in tale di facilmente la gratia sua simpetra.” Hypnerotomachia, p. 376, z8’.
74
Apuleius, Golden Ass, II.1 (Adlington translation).
75
“Nel Apollineo templo al diuo Simulachro per oraculo,” Hypnerotomachia, p. 164, k6’.

12
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

of the god in a holy temple and asking what would happen to his beautiful
daughter.”76 (Figure 8.) A short while after viewing these triumphs, Poliphilo
encounters the scene of the spectacular sacrifice to Priapus, where the god is present
in the form of a statue: “the rude image of the protector of gardens with all his decent
and proper attributes.”77 (Figure 9.) And in a simile regarding his eyes’ attention to
Polia, Poliphilo notes that “the statue of Apis always turns to face the sun.” 78

Not only the statues and rituals, but Poliphilo’s careful botanical inventories,
the variety of stones that he notes in his dream architecture, and even the exotic
flavorings and spices of Queen Eleuterylida’s banquet are also relevant to the magical
idols of the Asclepius.79 Perhaps the author included these details from a genuine
aspiration to recover the lost art of the Egyptian sacred statues, because Hermes
instructs, regarding the quality of such “earthly gods”:

It comes from a mixture of plants, stones and spices, Asclepius, that have in
them a natural power of divinity. And this is why those gods are entertained
with constant sacrifices, with hymns, praises and sweet sounds in tune with
heaven’s harmony: so that the heavenly ingredient enticed into the idol by
constant communication with heaven may gladly endure its long stay
among humankind. Thus does man fashion his gods.80

Polia herself is referenced as a magical idol. Poliphilo first complains that she
is deaf to his affections as if she were “a marble statue.”81 But later he addresses her
as “adorable idol of mine”82 and claims, “I have no other image, no statue or shrine
installed, painted or carved in the chambers of my heart.” 83 With respect to Polia, the

76
“Oraua in uno sacro templo el diuo simulacro, quel lo che della formosissima fiola deueua seguire.”
Hypnerotomachia, p. 167-8, k8.
77
“el rude simulachro del hortulano custode, cum tutti gli sui de centi & propriati insignii.”
Hypnerotomachia, pp. 194-195, m5’-m6.
78
“simulachro di Api, che al sole sempre si uolue spectabondo,” Hypnerotomachia, p. 283, s2.
79
For botanical examples, see Hypnerotomachia pp. 20-21, a6’-a7, and 68, d6’, and p. 74, e1’, and p.
357, y7. References to stones are nearly ubiquitous, but see p. 89, f1, for example. The spices of the
Queen’s banquet are on pp. 108-111, g2’-g4, and note the exotic incenses on p. 225, o5.
80
Asclepius 38; translation from Copenhaver 1992, p. 90.
81
“una marmorigena statua”: Hypnerotomachia p. 446, E1’.
82
“uenerando Idolo mio”: Hypnerotomachia p. 450, E3’.
83
“Ne altra imagine, ne simulachro, ne delubro nel intimo del mio core affixibile ne dipincto, ne
exculpto io tengo.” Hypnerotomachia p. 440, D6’.

13
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

principle of the magical statue exceeds the traditional notion of earthly images to
embody divine powers, and it is applied in a novel and complementary fashion to
arrive at the idea of a terrestrial soul embodied in a heavenly statue. During the visit
of Poliphilo’s soul to Venus in heaven, Cupid produces a “lovely image […] the true
and divine effigy of Polia.”84 (Figure 10.) The progress of Poliphilo’s soul in that
passage resembles a curiously inverted Orphic descent, in which Poliphilo/Orpheus
dies in order to rescue the soul of a still-living Polia/Eurydice from heaven,
redeeming her from her devout but damning celibacy.

NECESSITY AND ORDER

The Asclepius designates Heimarmenē (“Necessity”) as an ousiarchēs, or an

intelligible, originating deity. 85 Even within the Hermetic text in question, this term
occupies an ambiguous position between its theological role as an embodiment of
universal necessity, and its philosophical role as an abstract cosmic principle. Further
confusion arises with a subsequent distinction between Heimarmenē as such, and
Necessity (necessitas), the two of which form a revolving triad with Order.86 Such
ambiguity and confusion is not surprising, when the principle of Heimarmenē had
been at the heart of philosophical controversies in antiquity, from Aristotle through
the Stoics. These controversies were considered crucial because of their bearing on
the question of fate and human free will. The Italian Renaissance saw a vigorous
renewal of the discussion, beginning with the fatalism of Georgios Gemistos
Plethon’s neo-Pagan Book of Laws in the early 15th century.87 During the period of the
writing of the Hypnerotomachia, study of the Hermetica inspired different
interpretations of the issue by Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola.88 Later, a
more extremely fatalist perspective was detailed by Pietro Pomponazzi. 89

It is reasonable, then, that these ideas should be evident in the

Hypnerotomachia, and that they might be particularly prominent in the sections of the

84
“spectanda imagine […] uera & diua effigie di Polia.” Hypnerotomachia p. 457, E7.
85
Asclepius 19.
86
Asclepius 39-40.
87
Plethon 1983, pp. 64-79; Woodhouse 1986, pp. 329-334.
88
Garin 1983, pp. 90-93.
89
Op. cit., pp. 97-100.

14
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

narrative relating to Queen Eleuterylida, whose name means “free will.” Godwin
remarks the apparent irony in the fact that “everything that happens around the Queen
is fanatically orderly and ritualistic.”90 The main entertainment of the Queen’s palace
is a ballet in the form of a living game of chess.91 Chess is a game with no element of
chance, where the outcome is completely determined by the choices of the players.
The game may then stand as a parable, with the message that while Heimarmenē rules
all circumstances, human choice and will still have power over individual fate. 92
Immediately following this elaborate show, the Queen instructs Poliphilo that he will
need to make important choices. He will have to select among three portals leading to
Telosia (“destiny”), and in order to make that choice, he must choose whether to
follow the advice of the nymph Logistica (“reason”) or the nymph Thelemia
(“desire”).

As mentioned earlier, the Queen’s palace has an astrological design oriented

around the Planets, and the Asclepius subordinates the Planets as sensible gods under
the ousiarchēs of Heimarmenē. This Stoic and Platonist conception of the celestial
bodies as agents of necessity93 is also reflected in some nymphs’ remarks to Poliphilo:
“thanks to the divine power and your favourable stars, you have now escaped a great
danger,”94 Also, Logistica shows Poliphilo the labyrinth-garden of seven towers with
seven circuits between each, and it seems clear that the towers represent the planetary
spheres and their expressions of cosmic necessity. She explains that “whoever enters
cannot turn back,” that a matron in the first tower dispenses “future fates” to travelers,
and that at the central seventh tower waits a stern judge who allots a final doom to
each one who arrives there. And Logistica observes that even such travelers who
persevere come to “regret having ever entered this labyrinthine orchard, which
includes so many delights but submits them to such miserable and inevitable
necessity.” 95

90
Godwin 2002, p. 24.
91
Hypnerotomachia, pp. 119-121, g8-h1.
92
For a fuller discussion, see Weinberg 1979, pp. 321-330.
93
Festugière 1954, pp. 106-7.
94
“lau da la diuina potentia & la benignitate dilla tua stella. Imperoche uno extremo periculo horamai
sei euaso.” Hypnerotomachia, p. 78, e3.
95
“sono mœrenti quasi di essere intrati in tale labyrinthoso pomerio, Aduegnia che in se tante delitie
compræhenda, & ad tanta miserrima & ineuitabile necessitate subiace.” Hypnerotomachia, p. 126, h3’.

15
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

As with the idolatrous elements of the text, these references to necessity and
fate are superficially consistent with Apuleius’ occasional remarks on the topic in his
Metamorphoses. One example is Lucius’ declaration that “whatsoever the fates have
appointed to men, that I believe shall happen,” and that Diophanes “fell at length,
poor wretch, into the hands of unpropitious fate, or I might say fate unfaithful.”96 The
comparison with Lucius is easy, when Poliphilo decries his “ill luck and adverse
star,”97 referring again to the astrological represenatation of necessity, which puts
Poliphilo in servitude to uncaring Polia, just as Lucius underwent the torments of an
ass’s service to uncaring masters.

The Asclepius identifies Order (ordo) as the third component of the triad of
fate or eternity.98 This principle is described as the divine design informing all things,
and Hermes instructs that man should “observe the worldly order in an orderly
way.”99 This idea of Order may thus be compared to the “nature” which provided the
basis for the perennial Stoic ideal of living “life according to nature.” An explicit
imperative towards this ideal appears in the Hypnerotomachia, when Poliphilo
observes and notes the inscription on one lodestone of the magnetically self-opening
temple doors:


(Let each do according to his own nature.)100

THE MANY & THE ONE

The Hermetica take part in the long Platonist and Neopythagorean tradition of
referring to the metaphysical absolute as the henad, unity or One. An emphasis on
metaphysical unity appears at the outset of the Asclepius, with an insistence that all
good things “are one or are of one,” and that there is “One matter, one soul and one
god.”101 The Trismegistus of the Asclepius also refers to “the god whose power is

96
Apuleius, Golden Ass, I.20, II.13 (Adlington translation).
97
“limpia fortuna & la mia advuersatrica stella,” Hypnerotomachia, p. 449, E3.
98
Asclepius 40.
99
“eumque [conpetenter] munde mundum servando”: Asclepius 11.
100
“In latino, A ciascuno sare gli conueve secondo la sua natura.” Hypnerotomachia, p. 213, n7’.
101
“omnia unius esse aut unum esse omnia”: Asclepius 1. “mundus unus, anima una, et deus unus”:
Asclepius 3.

16
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

primary, governor of the first god.”102 Additionally, this Hermetic text seems to
participate in the long discourse regarding what scholars sometimes label as the “two-
opposite-principles doctrine” that was supposed to have begun with Plato’s own
pupils. The perfection of the One can be understood to elevate it above and beyond
multiform being, thus opposing it to a counterpart or manifested opposite, which
Plato’s student Speusippus called the “multitude.”103 In a central passage of the
Asclepius, Hermes declares, “In fact, all depend from one and flow from it though
they seem separated and are believed to be many,” 104 and he describes the world as “a
multiform accumulation taken as a single thing.” 105 This opposition between the
Many and the One opens the possibility of some intriguing readings of the
Hypnerotomachia.106

The nymph Osfressia brings up the question of Poliphilo’s name, and her
disappointment that it seems to mean “friend of Polia”(resposi Polia) rather than
“much loving” (molto amate).107 With the question thus highlighted, it is worth
wondering whether the nymph drew an accurate conclusion. Yet another translation of
the name would be “friend of many,” perhaps indicating that Poliphilo’s dream is a
submission to the illusion of multiplicity, thus believing the One to be Many in
Hermes’ terms. In Poliphilo’s sleep, the one thought of love for Polia is multiplied
into an elaborate adventure of many places and persons.

Despite the superlatives given to Jupiter, the utmost deity of the

Hypnerotomachia appears to be Venus, who rules over every circumstance described
in the book. This correlation may seem difficult, in light of other Hermetic and
Platonist doctrines. But the concept of love is a problematic one in Plato’s

102
“deus primipotens et unius gubernator dei”: Asclepius 26. See also the discussion of translation
issues regarding this phrase on p. 243 of Copenhaver 1992.
103
Merlan 1967, p. 31.
104
“Ex uno etenim cuncta pendentia ex eoque defluentia cum distantia videntur, credentur esse quam
plurima”: Asclepius 19.
105
“multiformis adunata congestio”: Asclepius 25.
106
“Multiplicity means otherness from the One, and whatever is other than the One must in some sense
be multiple.” Amstrong 1970, p. 242.
107
Hypnerotomachia, p. 84, e6.

17
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

metaphysics,108 and even Plotinus used “love” (eros) in an attempt to describe the
One.109

If, as some have argued, the “governor of the first god” in Asclepius 26
denotes a distinction between an absolute “primary” Henad beyond being and a
demiurgic “first god” among the many forms and phenomena, then Venus could be
the ultimate One, with Cupid as the power to whom the other gods bow. Again, this
might be the Hypnerotomachia author’s appreciation of the Hermetic wisdom, since
“it is impossible for any of the things that are to be infertile,” and Hermes
acknowledges Venus and Cupid as the rulers over this universal fecundity. 110 And
this reading is not necessarily incompatible with the actual Platonist background of
the Hermetica, which may well have attributed an erotic nature to Plato’s
Demiourgos.111 Furthermore, during the boat voyage, Cupid displays the character of
the manifested “all” which is divided and multiplied in human perception. Poliphilo
relates,

[B]y half-closing my eyelids I was able to see something of the divine boy
of many shapes. Sometimes he appeared to me in a double form, sometimes
triple, and again at other times he showed himself in countless images. 112

Alternatively, the Asclepius indicates a very different meaning for the “many”
(multi), in the sense of the masses of ignorant people, who are contrasted with “the
few people endowed with faithful mind.”113 Trismegistus derides “what the many
say,”114 he says that they retain the quality of evil 115 and that they “lack
confidence.”116 If these are the many to whom Poliphilo is a friend, then they could

108
Rist 1964, pp. 16-28.
109
Armstrong 1970, 261-262; a very full discussion is in Rist 1964, 56-112.
110
“Impossibile est enim aliquid eorum quae sunt infecundum esse.” Asclepius 21.
111
Rist 1964, pp. 29-40 provides an argument on these lines.
112
“Ma le gene conniuando, per questo modo alquanto il diuino fanciullo pluri pharia comprehendeua.
Alcuna fiata miappareua digemino aspecto. Talhora ditriplice, Et ancora tal fiata se monstraua cum
infinite effigie.” Hypnerotomachia, p. 285, s3.
113
“paucis sit pia mente praeditis”: Asclepius 23.
114
“quod a multis dicitur”: Asclepius 16.
115
“in multis remanere malitiam”: Asclepius 22.
116
“diffidis ut multi”: Asclepius 23.

18
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

be his readership, whom he addresses in the Tuscan vernacular, but with literary
artistry

such that none but the most learned should be able to penetrate the inner
sanctum of his teaching; yet he who approaches it with less learning should
not despair. It is the case here that although these things are difficult by
their nature, they are expounded with a certain grace, like a garden sown
with every kind of flower; they are told in a pleasant manner, presented
with many illustrations and images for the eyes.117

The text is designed with the purpose of instruction, providing entertainments that
will spur the less educated reader to the appreciation of profound learning, and even
pictures to intrigue the illiterate! Thus Poliphilo’s author expresses his friendship for
those “many” who do not yet have access to the Hermetic mind, in the hopes that they
will eventually be brought to the appreciation of “a compendious work” full of
“virtues’ wise words.”118

EROTIC SUPREMACY

Besides the issue of dating, one possible point of resistance for viewing the
Hypnerotomachia as participating in a Hermetic current could be Poliphilo’s
emphasis on eroticism and carnality. Certainly, the texts do plainly emphasize the
salvific dimension of “Mind,” rather than body, and some readers have characterized
the Hermetica as ascetic in their ideology. 119 For example, Hermes tells Asclepius,
“Conjoined to the gods by a kindred divinity, [a human being] despises inwardly that
part of him in which he is earthly.” 120 Now it is in no way necessary, or even
particularly helpful, to see Poliphilo’s author as a doctrinaire or “orthodox” Hermetist.
But there is some variance on these positions within the Hermetica, and even within
the Asclepius itself, to the point where the Poliphilo’s perspective could be seen as
compatible with Hermes’ teaching to Asclepius.

117
From Leonardo Grassi’s dedication, Hypnerotomachia, p. 2, 1’.
118
“compendio tale … ora uirum”: Hypnerotomachia, pp. 6, 3’ & 8, 4’.
119
Such highly disputable characterizations often follow from premises asserting the congruence of the
Hermetica with the Chaldean Oracles and certain strains of “pessimist” Gnosticism, such as the one
exemplified in The Apocryphon of John.
120
“hoc humanae naturae partem in se ipse despicit”: Asclepius 6.

19
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

On the general count of hostility towards material and carnal existence, the
Asclepius fits in with a larger trend among the Hermetica towards praising, rather than
deriding, the world and material creation. The world as a whole is “a work of god
beyond compare, a glorious construction, a bounty composed of images in multiform
variety.”121 The world is entirely subject to necessity, and Trismegistus advises that
“Necessity follows god’s pleasure.”122

The remark cited above regarding derision for the “earthly” corporeal
component of humanity reads somewhat differently, if taken in the context of the
larger passage in which it appears. Hermes associates the laudability of human nature
with the fact that it unites the intelligible and the material in a single being.

Thus god shapes mankind from the nature of soul and of body, from the
eternal and the mortal, in other words, so that the living being so shaped can
prove adequate to both its beginnings, wondering at heavenly beings and
worshipping them, tending earthly beings and governing them. 123

Trismegistus later repeats that “mankind […] should scorn and despise that mortal
part joined to him by the need to preserve the lower world.” But this injunction
occurs within a reflection on “earthly possessions owned out of bodily desire,” which
seems to refer expressly to desire for inanimate objects in the form of avarice or
gluttony. While it might be tempting to extend this condemnation to carnal lusts, a
contrary reading is quite possible. A bit later in the same section, Hermes says that a
devout and dutiful human can expect a divine reward, namely, “the prize our parents
had, the one we wish – in most faithful prayer – may be presented to us as well.”
Perhaps a bit surprisingly, what “our parents had” is then explained as release from
mortality, death without reincarnation. But an attentive reader will reflect that it is not
necessarily true or provable that “our parents had” such a death. Conditions of human
generation being what they are, it is necessary that “our parents had” carnal union.
And the traditional association of orgasm and death is founded on the idea that the
former, though in a more temporary form than the latter, is capable of “loosing the

121
“dei opus inimitabile, gloriosa constructio, bonum multiformi imaginum varietate conpositum”.
Asclepius 25.
122
“Placitum enim dei necessitas sequitur”: Asclepius 8.
123
Asclepius 8; translation from Copenhaver 1992, p. 71.

20
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

bonds of mortality so that god may restore us, pure and holy, to the nature of our
higher part, to the divine.”124

In discussing “The Gods of Poliphilo” and “The Many and the One,” several
passages of the Asclepius have been addressed which lend themselves to the
metaphysical elevation of love and the erotic. There is an explicit exaltation of “Cupid
or Venus or both” as the divine principle of creation.125 Particular praise is given to
Isis, who is identified with Venus by Apuleius.126 The Asclepius can thus be seen as
giving the creatrix Venus metaphysical priority over the animating Jupiter.127 But
there are still other features of the Asclepius that are hospitable towards an erotic
metaphysic.

One such feature is the priority assigned to the element of fire. “Only the fire
that moves upward is lifegiving,” insists Hermes, distinguishing it from the other
elements.128 He also praises “the power of fire” as a suitable topic for philosophical
contemplation,129 and remarks that “Fire causes many alterations that are divine.”130
In the Hypnerotomachia there are practically countless instances of fire as a simile or
metonym for passion, love, or erotic desire. Poliphilo in his longing for Polia tells the
nymph Aphea, “I implore you not to add fuel to my incredible fire, not to heap torches
and resin on it, not to daub pitch on my inflammable heart, […] I pray you!” 131 And in
his wooing of Polia, he says, “I have offered my heart to you in a holocaust upon the
burning flame of love.”132 Queen Eleuterylida refers to “the amorous flames of

124
“partem quae sibi [[iuncta mortalis est]] munci inferioris necessitate servandi <<iuncta mortalis
est>> despiciat atque contemnat.” … “quaecunque terrena corporali cupiditate possidentur” … “quo
parentes nostri munerati sunt, quo etiam nos quoque munerari” … “nexibus mortalitatis absolutos,
naturae superioris patris, id est divine, puros sanctosque resituat.” Asclepius 11.
125
Asclepius 21.
126
Asclepius 48.
127
This arrangement contrasts with the absolute supremacy of Jupiter in the scheme of Plethon’s Book
of Laws. Woodhouse 1986, pp. 329-331, 337-339, 345-346.
128
“ignis solum quod sursum versus vertur vivificum”: Asclepius 2.
129
“ignis vim”: Asclepius 13.
130
“Ignis facit conversiones plurimas, atque divinas <recipit> <<species>>.” Asclepius 36.
131
“ue supplico, Non agiungete face & non accumulate teda & refina al mio incredibile incendio, Non
pica te piu il mio arsibile core, Non me fate ischiantare ue prego.” Hypnerotomachia, p. 87, e8.
132
“cum urente flamma damore, il mio holocausto core immolato”: Hypnerotomachia, p. 453, E5.

21
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

Polia.”133 Going beyond the level of simile, the power of love manifests itself as “a
sourceless flame” when Poliphilo prepares to rend the veil of the marriage rite in the
Cytherean temple.134

Another aspect of the Asclepius is much more significant than the priority of
fire, and that is the importance of coupling, intercourse, or mingling as a physical and
metaphysical principle. As mentioned earlier, it is the union of mind and body that
characterizes the human condition for Hermes, and in the context of other language in
the Asclepius, that union can be considered sexual or generative in nature. Hermes
explains that humans are relased from error into divine knowledge as a result of the
coupling of soul and consciousness (anima & sensus).135 Hulē and anima (i.e. matter
and spirit) unite procreatively in nature, and the generative power is dependent upon
coupling (commixtione).136 Divinity refrains from entering into inferior animals in
order to avoid the shame of coupling or mingling with such creatures.137 And most of
all, there is the decidedly explicit passage in which Trismegistus outlines “the mystery
of procreation”:

For if you take note of that final moment to which we come after constant
rubbing when each of the two natures pours its issue into the other and one
hungrily snatches [love] from the other and buries it deeper, finally at that
moment from the common coupling females gain the potency of males and
males are exhausted with the lethargy of females. 138

Attending to parts of the Hermetic discourse such as these, Poliphilo’s author must
have seen his erotic fantasy as heartily consistent with the wisdom of Trismegistus.

CONCLUSION

There are some broad areas of sympathy and correlation between the
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the Hermetic Asclepius. The Hypnerotomachia
references and prioritizes the gods mentioned in the Asclepius. The Hermetic praise
for ancient Egypt is echoed by Poliphilo, whose dream includes many references to

133
“amorose flamme di Polia”: Hypnerotomachia, p. 121, h1.
134
“caeca flamma circunacto non ricusando”: Hypnerotomachia, p. 361, z1.
135
Asclepius 18.
136
Asclepius 14-15.
137
Asclepius 32.
138
Asclepius 21; translation from Copenhaver 1992, p. 79.

22
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

the characteristically Hermetic idea of animated statues or magical idols. Both texts
concern themselves with a philosophy of necessity and order. The opposition of the
Many and the One in the Asclepius provides a window into further meaning in
Poliphilo’s name and his adventure. And the erotic supremacy expressed in the
Hypnerotomachia could have found ample grounding in doctrines of physical and
metaphysical intercourse taught by Hermes to Asclepius.

Even outside of these wide categories, there are occasional items of style or
content that provoke comparison between the two texts. The retention of Greek
technical terms like arithmētikē, hulē, and ousiarchēs in the Latin Asclepius is echoed
in the allegorical Greek names for all of the characters in the Hypnerotomachia.
When Poliphilo describes the gestures of the nymphs’ lovers as more delectable and
welcome “than the desire of matter for form,”139 it mirrors the instruction of Hermes
that “God prepared matter as a receptacle for omniform forms, but nature […] causes
all things to reach as far as heaven so that they will be pleasing in the sight of
God.”140 The episode of Poliphilo’s brief fatality and ascent to the throne of Venus
recalls Trismegistus’ admonition that the chief demon weighs and judges the soul
after death.141

Since the author’s identity and the dates and locations of authorship remain
contested and obscure, it is still uncertain whether the Hypnerotomachia was
independent of the Ficinian project of recovering and translating the Hermetic lore.
But nearly every one of the forty-one sections of the Asclepius contains ideas or
images that have counterparts in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. It seems
conservative to suggest that, regardless of his acquaintance with the larger Corpus
Hermeticum, the author of Poliphilo was not only intimate with, but enthusiastic
about, the magical religion of Egypt described in the Latin Asclepius. Furthermore,
close attention reveals some of the Hypnerotomachia’s main themes as adumbrations
of Hermetic Neo-Platonism, understood in the peculiar fashion of a Renaissance
pseudo-Apuleian reading of the Asclepius. Although scholars have so far balked at

139
“Et piu che alla materia la optata forma.” Hypnerotomachia, p. 183, l8.
140
“Mundus autem praeperatus est a deo receptaculum omniformium specierum; natura autem” … “ad
caelum usque producit cuncta dei visibus placitura.” Asclepius 3.
141
Hypnerotomachia, pp. 455-460, E6-E8’; and Asclepius 28.

23
Matthew D. Rogers Hermetica Poliphili

classing the Hypnerotomachia as a text of Renaissance Hermeticism per se, there are
demonstrable reasons for reading it as such.

On emerging from all my anxious thoughts and fantasies, I recalled all the
wonders I had seen, and concluded that they were not deceptions or magic
tricks, but rather things imperfectly understood.
— “Poliphilo,” Hypnerotomachia, p. 185, m1

24