Francesco Pona

• Name — Francesco Pona • Born — 11 October 1595 • Birthplace — Verona, Republic of Venice • Died — 2 October 1655 • Place of death — Verona, Republic of Venice • Resting Place — San Fermo Maggiore, Verona • Other Names — Eureta Misoscolo • Occupation — * Historian • Playwright • Physician • Writer • Education — * University of Padua • University of Bologna • Parents — Giovanni Pona and Camilla Pona (née Gipsi)

A Veronese medical doctor and member of many academies, Pona was a prolific writer, producing medical and scientific texts, historiography, literary translation, drama, lyric poetry, prose romances, and tales. A follower of Cesare Cremonini, a heterodox Aristotelian professor at Padua, Pona was a leading member of the influential Accademia degli Incogniti - a society of Venetian intellectuals famous for the libertine and anti-clerical tendencies of many of its members. By the late-1620s, Pona converted to a strict Catholicism and abjured his juvenile production. After his conversion Pona dedicated himself to composing moral works of religious inspiration and biographies of saints. Of particular importance are the morality play in four acts Parthenio (1627), displaying the triumph of virginity (the two main characters – Partenio and Virginità – get married, and eventually the latter guides her spouse to Heaven) and the sacred play in five-acts Il Christo Passo (1629). In 1650 Pona received the title of historiographer from the emperor Ferdinand III. He died in Verona on 2 October 1655.

Pona is best known for the horrific and macabre stories of La Lucerna (The Lamp, 1625). This is a dialogue between a young student, Eureta, and a soul imprisoned in his oil lamp. The soul tells the boy the story of its many reincarnations in various people, animals, and objects, emphasizing the pathological and cruel aspects of its experiences. Despite its heterodoxy (in March 1626 La Lucerna was included in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Catholic Church), the work was so popular that it was reprinted in five editions before the end of the decade. Ormondo (1635), with its five insert-stories, offers an interesting blend of romance and novella traditions. Pona is also known for his translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1617), Martianus Capella's De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii and John Barclay's Argenis (1629). Later in his life, he wrote an emblem book, Cardiomorphoseos, sive ex corde desumpta emblemata sacra (1645), called by a leading scholar "a point of suture between Renaissance imprese and Baroque emblems". Pona's scientific works include Il gran contagio di Verona nel 1630 (1631), an accurate account of the plague that affected Verona in 1630. The essay granted him the honour of being part of the Collegio dei Medici, the most prestigious organization of doctors in Verona at that time. Pona was also the author of an accurate description of the Giusti Garden in Verona (Il Sileno, 1620).

• Illustration — Cardiomorphoseos sive ex corde desumpta emblemata sacra, Verona, 1645 * * • La Lucerna, 1625: a dialogue reporting the imagined discussions over four evenings between a speaker-narrator (a soul imprisoned in an oil lamp) and the student Eureta, allowing the author to tell a series of observations, stories, curious or memorable facts and the lives of modern, mythological or historical people, each of whom the author makes represent a specific behavioural trait or illustrate a particular moral teaching. * * * * * * * * * * * * *