The blind impressions in the Aldine Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499)

Despite its standing as the most famous and beautiful book of the Italian Renaissance, the “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili” (1499) still has its secrets. The article reveals the presence in some forty points in the edition of “blind impressions”, or lines of type used as an uninked support which leave a faint indentation in the apparently empty spaces in the page. After an examination of some sixty copies, the relationship between the typographical forme supplying the lines of type and that in which they are employed is described, in order to better our understanding of how this Aldine masterpiece was created in the printing shop. Of particular interest is the discovery of the original colophon of the edition, with a different date, discarded in order to make room for the errata-corrige, but re-employed as a support in a page of the preliminary gathering.