Rating: 
Summary: It's not the original -- but all the same ...
Review: Some years back, I had the incredible joy of handling a copy of the 1499 Aldine edition. The Thames & Hudson edition, it must be stated, does not have the powerful, almost magic, beauty only an original could have. It must also be stated, however, that this comes as close as any modern edition possibly could, with all the woodcuts and the typography intact: this book is magnificent. I commend it to all with any love for or interest in incunabula specifically or in the history of books in general.
Rating:
Summary: A dream of a book
Review: The extraordinary care that was taken by the publisher in the production and design of this book goes beyond beauty. The weight, proportions, paper and typography are something like the experience of the original, or at least, of what the experience of reading was in the time of Colonna. This all helps illuminate the hallucinatory, allegorical text, and for this reader, I felt as if I was inhaling some kind of ether. What breathtaking insight this book provides into the sensibility and mileu of the Renaissance.
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular
Review: This is a wonderful translation of an extraordinary book. Nearly 500 pages of sensual detailed descriptions of fantasy architecture, gardens, and travels along with a short love story. Creates a whole other world. Fun to read aloud.
Rating:
Summary: Gods, and bulls, and naked Greeks
Review: This is fascinating. It attempts not only to translate Colonna's mixed Latin/Italian texts, but also to reproduce the look and feel of the original 1499 Aldine edition. Of course, all the woodcuts are there, and the typeface and layout also attempt to reproduce the original, which has long been famed as one of the most beautiful books ever printed.
The architectural and other illustrations are strange, but they are perhaps the most intriguing thing about the book. Some are reminiscent of Beardsley; others bring to mind Baudelaire's vision of a city made entirely of marble and metal, from which all plants have been banished as asymmetrical.
It will take quite a while to get through this. The peculiar mixed-language flavour of Colonna's prose is hard to reproduce in translation. The work is a long list of vaguely erotic dream-processions of gods and bulls and naked Greeks, with extensive descriptions of the architectural settings they appear in. With its unsparing strings of superlatives, it often reads like the florid descriptions of dishes found on the menu of an overreaching restaurant.
In other words, I may not finish this, but it is fun to look at.
Rating:
Summary: Gods, and bulls, and naked Greeks
Review: This is fascinating. It attempts not only to translate Colonna's mixed Latin/Italian texts, but also to reproduce the look and feel of the original 1499 Aldine edition. Of course, all the woodcuts are there, and the typeface and layout also attempt to reproduce the original, which has long been famed as one of the most beautiful books ever printed.
The architectural and other illustrations are strange, but they are perhaps the most intriguing thing about the book. Some are reminiscent of Beardsley; others bring to mind Baudelaire's vision of a city made entirely of marble and metal, from which all plants have been banished as asymmetrical.
It will take quite a while to get through this. The peculiar mixed-language flavour of Colonna's prose is hard to reproduce in translation. The work is a long list of vaguely erotic dream-processions of gods and bulls and naked Greeks, with extensive descriptions of the architectural settings they appear in. With its unsparing strings of superlatives, it often reads like the florid descriptions of dishes found on the menu of an overreaching restaurant.
In other words, I may not finish this, but it is fun to look at.
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