Very little is known about his early life, although the Augustinian friar Jordan of Quedlinburg claimed in his Liber Vitasfratrum that Giles belonged to the noble Colonna family of Rome.

Giles remained in Paris studying and teaching theology until Bishop Étienne Tempier condemned the application of Aristotelianism within the Christian discourse, including those who had produced commentaries on Aristotle's work.

In reference to this, a contemporary philosopher, Godfrey of Fontaines mentioned Giles as the most renowned theologian of the whole city (qui modo melior de tota villa in omnibus reputatur), suggesting that he might have been in Paris during this period before going back to Rome.

The work is divided into three books: the first treats the individual conduct of the king, the nature of his true happiness, the choice and acquisition of virtues, and the ruling of passions; the second deals with family life and the relations with wife, children, and servants; the third considers the State, its origin, and the proper mode of governing in times of peace and war.

In his treatise De renunciatione Papæ sive Apologia pro Bonifacio VIII he shows the legitimacy of Celestine's resignation and consequently of Boniface's election.

The Defensorium seu Correctorium corruptorii librorum Sancti Thomæ Aquinatis against the Franciscan William de la Mare of Oxford is by some attributed to him, but this remains uncertain.

Nevertheless, on many points, he holds independent views and abandons the Thomistic doctrine to follow the opinions of St. Augustine and of the Franciscan School.

Among the most prominent representatives of this school must be mentioned Giacomo Capoccio of Viterbo (d. 1307) and Augustinus Triumphus (d. 1328), both of them his contemporaries, and also students and professors in the University of Paris: Prosper of Reggio Emilia, Albert of Padua, Gerard of Siena, Henry of Friemar, Thomas of Strasbourg – all in the first half of the fourteenth century.

But as late as the seventeenth century should be mentioned Raffaello Bonerba (d. 1681) who wrote Disputationes totius philosophiæ … in quibus omnes philosophicæ inter D. Thomam et Scotum controversiæ principaliter cum doctrina nostri Ægidii Columnæ illustrantur (Palermo, 1645, 1671); and Agostino Arpe (d. 1704) who wrote Summa totius theologiæ Ægidii Columnæ (Bologna, 1701, and Genoa, 1704).

Federico Nicolò Gavardi (d. 1715), the most important interpreter of Colonna, composed Theologia exantiquata iuxta orthodoxam S. P. Augustini doctrinam ab Ægidio Columna doctore fundatissimo expositam … (6 vols.

Benignus Sychrovský (d. 1737) wrote also Philosophia vindicata ab erroribus philosophorum gentilium iuxta doctrinam S. Augustini et B. Ægidii Columnæ (Nuremberg, 1701).