The name of the author was Francis Colonna, who was born at Venice, and at an early age became a monk of the order of St. Dominic. In 1467 he professed Grammar and Classical Literature in the convent of his order at Trevisa; and he afterwards became Professor of Theology at Padua, where he commenced Doctor in 1473, a degree which, according to the rule of his order, he could not assume until he was forty. At the time of his death, which happened in 1527, he could not thus be less than ninety-four years old. The true name of this amorous dreaming monk, and the fictitious one of the woman with whom he was in love, are thus expressed by combining, in the order in which they follow each other, the initial letters of the several chapters: “POLIAM FRATER FRANSISCUS COLUMNA PERAMAVIT.”[IV-59] If any reliance can be placed on the text and the cuts as narrating and representing real incidents, we may gather that the stream of love had not run smooth with father Francis any more than with simple laymen. With respect to the true name of the mistress of father Francis, biographers are not agreed. One says that her name was Lucretia Maura; and another that her name was Ippolita, and that she belonged to the noble family of Poli, of Trevisa, and that she was a nun in that city. From the name Ippolita some authors thus derive the fictitious name Polia: Ippolita; Polita; Polia. [Footnote IV-59: In the life of Colonna in the Biographie Universelle, the last word is said to be “_adamavit_,” which is a mistake. The word formed by the initial letters of the nine last chapters is “_peramavit_,” as above.] A second edition, also from the Aldine press, appeared in 1545; and in the following year a French translation was printed at Paris under the following title: “Le Tableau des riches inventions couvertes du voile des feintes amourouses qui sont representées dans le Songe de Poliphile, devoilées des ombres du Songe, et subtilment exposées.” Of this translation several editions were published; and in 1804 J. G. Legrand, an architect of some repute in Paris, printed a kind of paraphrase of the work, in two volumes 12mo, which, however, was not published until after his death in 1807. In 1811 Bodoni reprinted the original work at Parma in an elegant quarto volume.