Francesco Colonna

This article is about an Italian writer. For the homonymous noble of the Colonna family, also credited with the authorship of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, see Francesco Colonna (born 1460).

Francesco Colonna (1433(?) – 1527) was an Italian Dominican priest and monk who was credited with the authorship of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili by an acrostic in the text.

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili illustration (1499).

He lived in Venice, and preached at St. Mark's Cathedral. Besides Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, he definitely wrote an Italian epic poem called Delfili Somnium, the "Dream of Delfilo' which went unpublished in his lifetime and was not published until 1959.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 of St. John and St. Paul 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 book, The Rule of Four, Francesco Colonna is said to be a Roman, rather than a monk and the true author of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

External links

• Works by Francesco Colonna at Project Gutenberg
• 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, ISBN 9780820111247.
• Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, at MIT Press
• Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, at Rare Book Room