Welcome Message from the Author

 

Dear Readers, I am pleased to announce my second book on the Hypnerotomachia. After working on this project for more than 15 years, I noticed since my first publication that the results have interested a distinct, but international audience stretching from North America, Continental Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa to Asia and the South Pacific.

All I can say is that it all started out as a hobby. While reading a facsimile of the original HP on business trips during my free time, I started to sketch what I was releasing from the text. Time and activities pursued, and after seeing my first rendering of one of Poliphilus’ temples on a computer screen back in 1998, I knew I was hooked!

Since then, I have developed a full, design-study project:   Formas Imaginisque Poliphili, which means “imaginary models of Poliphilus”. I find few words to express the emotion, when you de-code something written or thought out by somebody centuries ago, and precisely translate it into graphical images for all to see. It’s like pulling out a message squeezed into a bottle you found in the ocean, and finally reading aloud and understanding what it means.   What a discovery.

This is my project, and I hope that my work will please you. Only approximately 15% of what Poliphilus describes has been reconstructed with my project so far.   Even now, I still have many sketches and designs left over and uncompleted from my second publication.   This means that I can only continue, with the hope that my work can help those interested in understanding the legacy of what Renaissance civilization has contributed to our modern world history.

Recently, my project has been considered for sponsorship and funding by private foundations in Italy. My hope is that this interest may extend also to the US and beyond.

As all art can be an expression or “construction” of human condition, history, thought, change, and emotion (especially inspiration), the words of Poliphilus allow us to design and build incredible feats of architecture, and move us to use our human imagination, constantly evolving as this project does.

With this in mind, I invite you now to witness the visions of a 500 year-old dream of sublime beauty, ferocity, liberty, grace, and most important: Love.

E.A.C.

Text & Images Copyright © 2012 by Esteban Alejandro Cruz