Exactly 500 years after its first publication by the great Venetian printing house Aldus Manutius, Francesco Colonna's weird, erotic, allegorical antiquarian tale, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, was translated into English and reprinted in full, together with all of its 174 original - and enchanting - woodcut illustrations.
The most famous book of the Renaissance is now triumphantly translated into English by Joscelyn Godwin, who succeeds in reproducing all its wayward charm and arcane learning in language accessible to the modern reader.
