Francesco Colonna (1433/1434 – 1527) was an Italian Dominican

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

and

monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

who was credited with the authorship of the ''

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ''Hypnerotomachia Poliphili'' (; ), called in English ''Poliphilo's Strife of Love in a Dream'' or ''The Dream of Poliphilus'', is a book said to be by Francesco Colonna. It is a famous example of an incunable (a work of early printing). The wor ...

'' by an

acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fre ...

formed by initial letters of the text. He lived in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, and preached at St. Mark's Cathedral. Besides ''

'', he definitely wrote a

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

epic poem In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to ...

, ''Delfili Somnium'' (the "Dream of Delfilo"), which went unpublished in his lifetime and was not published until 1959. Colonna spent part of his life in the

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

of San Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, but the monastery was apparently not of the strictest observance and Colonna was granted leave to live outside its walls. In Ian Caldwell's and Dustin Thomason's novel '' The Rule of Four'', the Roman noble of the same name, Francesco Colonna, is featured as the true author of the ''Hypnerotomachia Poliphili''.A comparable conclusion was reached in G. Goebel, "Le songe de Francesco Colonna, prince prenestin", ''Fifteenth Century Studies'', Stuttgart, 1983.

References

External links

* * * Colonna, Francesco, ''Hypnerotomachia: The Strife of Love in a Dreame'', Translation by R.D., London, 1592. Facsimile ed., introd. by Lucy Gent, 1973, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, .
''Hypnerotomachia Poliphili''
at

MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...

''Hypnerotomachia Poliphili''
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Colonna, Francesco Italian Renaissance writers 15th-century Venetian writers 1430s births 1527 deaths Italian Dominicans 16th-century Venetian writers 16th-century Italian male writers 15th-century writers in Latin 16th-century writers in Latin Latin-language writers from Italy