Exactly five hundred years after its first publication, by the greatVenetian printing house of Aldus Manutius, Francesco Colonna#s weird,erotic, allegorical antiquarian tale, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, wastranslated into English and reprinted in full, together with all of its 174 original # and enchanting # woodcut illustrations. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has been called the first stream-of- consciousness novel, and is one of the most important documents of Renaissance imagination and fantasy. The author (presumed to be a friar of dubious reputation) was obsessed by architecture, landscape and costume # it is not going too far to say sexually obsessed # and its woodcuts are a primary source for Renaissance ideas on both buildings and gardens. This translation was first published in 1999 in a large format that exactly matched the original in size, design and typography. This new edition reproduces the first in everything but size # it is about a third smaller. It retains all the text and illustrations and is easy to handle and read.