Monday, November 05, 2007

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Re: Edward Tufte--- still raving to all who will listen about his superb one day workshop, Presenting Data and Information--- the title of which in no way suggests the fun of it all. (See my previous blog post on Tufte here.) In his fourth book, Beautiful Evidence, he presents Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an illustrated book probably written by the monk Francesco Colonna and published in Venice in 1499. Tufte's point is that the harmonious presentation of pictures and text is so extraordinary that it is, as he calls it, "a forever beauty." --->Here's the MIT Press's on-line electronic version of the entire tome. And here are a few more pages from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili:
What especially interests me about this is the integration of pictures and text--- which is exactly what I've been doing, almost every day since I began blogging, using the www.blogger.com software. And yet, my novel does not have any illustrations. I've always considered illustrations kind of, well, cheesy. But I reconsider... More anon.