An ivory sarcophagus, containing two perfectly preserved corpses, decorated with so-called Egyptian hieroglyphs. Poliphilo interprets the sequence of emblems as follows: “To the blessed shades. Death spurns all life’s contrary and rapid things. It gives, it takes, it consumes, it dissolves. Here it has sweetly united two dead ones who loved mutually, strictly, and ardently.”.

Featured on PDR in the essay Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the Architecture of Dreams

With its otherworldly woodcuts and ornate descriptions of imagined architecture, _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_ brims with an obsessive and erotic fixation on form. Demetra Vogiatzaki accompanies the hero as he wanders the pages of this quattrocento marvel, at once a story of lost love and a fever dream of antiquity.