Are there codes in the Hypnerotomachia?

Question

Are there really riddles and secret messages embedded in the Hypnerotomachia like 'The Rule of Four' suggests?

Answer 1

Yes, in the sense of literary puzzles. The Hypnerotomachia is a production of High Renaissance humanist scholarship so it is filled with "new" words, classical (Greek and Latin) references and puzzles in the form of "phony" hieroglyphs (the writer, whoever he may be, is thought by scholars to have "known" he was making up the "ancient" writing, but many later scholars, like Erasmus of Rotterdam, thought they were real.) The Hypnerotomachia is a typical work of hermetic philosophy
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism ) that saw the entire universe as a type of puzzle (this is why many of the early mathematicians and scholars like Alberti, Dr. Dee and even as late a Kepler, were "hermetic" philosophers. When we consider that Newton, the icon of scientific method - as opposed to hermetic/gnostic thinking - left twice as much writing on alchemy and revelations as he did on physics and math we can see the deep influence of hermeticism in western thought.) The Rule of Four is another (though better) example like the Da Vinci Code of "populism" in pop literature. The writers (who freely admit this on the books homepage) got the idea from a class on Renaissance thought at Princeton. They took a great deal of recent scholarship (including the first complete English translation of the Hypnerotomachia finished by a professor at Colgate U. in 1999) and "juiced" it up with fictional additions and speculations. While there is nothing wrong with this for fun reading, if you have serious questions about the work, it is better to look at the original: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnerotomachia good luck and good reading

Answer 2

US99.5 WUSN – Chicago site visitors congestion – Mile marker Taylor – chilly as you Artist – Thomas Rhett Trish’s – fowl tenders in the previous They have been well-liked – working female action picture star Interview trivialities – vast Bang thought u . s . a . music – Curly Putnam entertainment Video trivialities – leap First strains – Clammy palms Get Your game On – might 14, 1986 tutor Me the money – 6.4 cents A Stoddard Presentation – Amazon on a daily basis Dose Video trivialities – Lunch Dentist trivialities – Gingivitis Diabetes trivialities – Dry mouth entertainment Zone – Jaws bypass at the back of the curtain on the 2013 Billboa – MGM Grand It’s a secret – Amelia Grace Justin Bieber Booed at Billboard music A - Ring life of the wealthy and well-liked – Watertown human beings trivialities – Gums Smile trivialities – stable oral well being in the present day In history – The purple flow video clips long previous Wild – Stephanie worldwide's Tallest luxury Housing: upward push of - Miami $a hundred ninety Million sources: u . s . a . of america's New maximum - Greenwich

Answer 3

If I had the time or inclination to investigate that kind of stuff, the hypnerotomachia would be a good place to start. During that age when it was written, many alchemical authors and members of secret societies were into concealing messages in their work.
It doesn't seem to have much other purpose than that. I mean, it is a kind of weird tale.