About The Hypernotomachia Poliphili
Want to know more about the book that Paul and Tom are unraveling in THE RULE OF FOUR? Below you'll find some "fun facts" about the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili itself and additional insight as to how and why the authors came to incorporate this text into their debut novel.
Click Here to learn more about the Hypernotomachia Poliphili, the book that inspired THE RULE OF FOUR!
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili Fun Facts:
1. The title "Hypnerotomachia" is an invented word drawn from the Greek roots for "sleep" (as in "hypnotize"), "love/lust" (as in "erotic"), and "struggle/strife" (as in "naumachia," the mock sea-fights held by ancient Romans). The title thus literally means something like "Struggle for love in a dream," and describes what the main character, Poliphilo, spends the entire story doing: searching for his beloved in a dream.
2. Until 1999, no full English translation of the Hypnerotomachia existed. The only previous attempt was by a translator with the initials "R.D."—probably Robert Dallington, a contemporary of Shakespeare's—who got less than halfway done before giving up. In 1999, a music professor at Colgate University named Joscelyn Godwin completed his full English translation, which is now widely available.
3. The hieroglyphics that appear in the Hypnerotomachia are not authentic. Some are borrowed from a Roman frieze that Renaissance humanists wrongly considered Egyptian; others are invented, but later Renaissance scholars (including Erasmus) mistakenly considered them genuine. The Hypnerotomachia's author, in other words, was both a victim and perpetrator of hieroglyphic ignorance among Renaissance humanists!
Authors IAN CALDWELL and DUSTIN THOMASON answer some burning questions:
The novel centers on a real Renaissance text, The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili; a book that is fairly obscure. Explain how you discovered this book and why you choose to develop your story around it.
We owe it to a Princeton seminar entitled "Renaissance Art, Science, and Magic." Ian's final paper for the seminar dealt with a 1499 text entitled Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, one of the most beautiful and valuable books of early Western printing, and one that has divided scholars for years over its meaning and the identity of its author. By the time the research paper was finished, we were already planning to spend the summer writing an intellectual suspense novel together. The mystery of the Hypnerotomachia supplied a perfect starting point, and before long we had hatched a "solution" to the book's mystery that became the centerpiece of the plot.
You seamlessly blend fact and fiction throughout the novel. For example, Savonarola is a real historical figure, about whom much is known, but what of Francesco Colonna, the author of the Hypnerotomachia? How much is really known about him and how fact-based is your portrait of him?
Oddly enough, scholars don't even agree that the author of the book was Francesco Colonna, despite the internal evidence of the text that he was. As many "alternate" authors have been proposed for the Hypnerotomachia as have been proposed for Shakespeare's plays. To further complicate matters, there are actually two Francesco Colonnas who may have written the book, and both are shadowy figures. One was a Dominican monk in Venice, about whom scattered Church records remain. The other was from the powerful Colonna dynasty in Rome, and though much is known about other members of his family, relatively little is known about Francesco. THE RULE OF FOUR tries to remain as faithful as possible to the biographies of the contending Francescos, but once Tom and Paul begin to decipher the Hypnerotomachia, they discover a (fictional) side to the Roman Francesco Colonna that no one had previously known.
Are secret codes really buried in the text of the Hypnerotomachia?
Yes. The disagreement among scholars is simply, how many? One of the Hypnerotomachia's mysteries is that its author never explicitly gives his name, but his identity seems to be revealed when the first letter of every chapter is connected to the next: the letters form the Latin message "Poliam Frater Franciscus Columna Peramavit," meaning "Brother Francesco Colonna Loved Polia Tremendously." (Polia is the name of the main female character in the Hypnerotomachia.) In addition to this hidden acrostic message, the entire text of the book is written in a hybrid of languages that was considered gratuitously complex even in its own day. When these facts are combined with the strangeness of certain elements in the story - the detailed attention to the dimensions and features of buildings the protagonist sees, not to mention the protagonist's sexual feelings toward those buildings - it's easy to see why some readers believe there must be a hidden subtext.
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