Abstract

This article focuses on the botanical specimens and their symbolic purpose in the narrative of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499). It examines the questions as to why certain plants are positioned at certain narrative stages, and how the relationship between their aesthetic, medical, literary, and symbolic purpose fits with the narrative. It also examines how this ratiocination of reflecting a developing topography with the interior development of the soul is handled in a wholly humanist–Renaissance manner over earlier treatments of botany in the medieval philosophical dream allegories such as Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun’s Roman de la rose and Brunetto Latini’s Il Tesoretto, or the pre-medieval Prudentius’s Psychomachia.¹1 As Godwin’s translation is the only currently published English translation, I have used this when quoting from the Hypnerotomachia, however, in the appendix of botanical terms I have translated the names myself with commentary.

摘要

本文重点介绍《Hypnerotomachia Poliphili》 （1499 年）叙述中的植物标本及其象征意义。它研究了为什么某些植物被放置在某些叙事阶段，以及它们的美学、医学、文学和象征目的之间的关系如何与叙事相契合的问题。它还探讨了这种反映发展中的地形与灵魂的内部发展的推理是如何以一种完全人文主义文艺复兴的方式处理的，而不是中世纪哲学梦寓言中对植物学的早期处理，例如纪尧姆·德·洛里斯和让·德·梅恩的罗马德拉罗斯和布鲁内托·拉蒂尼的《Il Tesoretto》，或者中世纪前普鲁登修斯的《Psychomachia》。¹1 由于戈德温的译本是目前唯一出版的英文译本，我在引用《Hypnerotomachia》时使用了这个译本，但在植物学术语的附录中，我自己翻译了这些名称并附有注释。