Of all the wood-cuts executed in Italy within the fifteenth century there are none that can bear a comparison for elegance of design with those contained in an Italian work entitled “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,” a folio without printer’s name or place, but certainly printed at Venice by Aldus in 1499. This “Contest between Imagination and Love, by a general Lover,”--for such seems to be the import of the title,--is an obscure medley of fable, history, antiquities, mathematics, and various other matters, highly seasoned with erotic sketches[IV-57] suggested by the prurient imagination of a monk,--for such the author was,--who, like many others of his fraternity, in all ages, appears to have had “a _law_ not to marry, and a _custom_ not to live chaste.” The language in which this chaos of absurdities is composed is almost as varied as the subjects. The ground-work is Italian, on which the author engrafts at will whole phrases of Latin, with a number of words borrowed from the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldee. “Certain persons,” says Tiraboschi, “who admire a work the more the less they understand it, have fancied that they could perceive in the Hypnerotomachia a complete summary of human knowledge.”[IV-58] [Footnote IV-57: Bibliographers and booksellers in their catalogues specify with delight such copies as contain “la figura rappresentante il Sacrifizio à Priapo bene conservata,” for in some copies this choice subject is wanting, and in others partially defaced.] [Footnote IV-58: Some account of the Hypnerotomachia and its author is to be found in Prosper Marchand’s Dictionnaire Historique.]