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.

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.

[2] Despite its heterodoxy (in March 1626 La lucerna was included in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Catholic Church),[3] the work was so popular that it was reprinted in five editions before the end of the decade.

[4] Ormondo (1635), with its five insert-stories, offers an interesting blend of romance and novella traditions.