Francesco Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.
Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1499

First edition of this typographical masterpiece entitled 'the battle of love in the dream of Poliphilus'. It is an expression of the late 15th-century fascination with cults from antiquity and the idea of an all-pervading Eros as promoted by Ficino. The illlustrations of hieroglyphs, Greek and Latin inscriptions, grotesques and trionfi, amongst other subjects, all concern matters Poliphilus meets with on his quest for his beloved Polia. The book provided the basis for another Hermetic narrative: Chymische Hochzeit by J.V. Andreae (1616), one of the so-called Rosicrucian manifestoes.

Copy with the ownership inscription of the mathematician, artist and alchemist Oronce Finé.