Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Silvae is a collection of 32 Latin occasional poems by Publius Papinius Statius, written in hexameters, hendecasyllables, and lyric meters. The poems are divided into five books, each with a prose preface, and were composed between approximately 89 and 96 CE. Subjects range from praise of Domitian's building projects to personal laments for the dead.
Poggio Bracciolini rediscovered the Silvae at Reichenau Abbey around 1417 while attending the Council of Constance. He commissioned a copy in 1418, now known as the M manuscript, which is held in the Biblioteca Nacional de Espana in Madrid.
Statius drew on Catullus for meter and thematic variety, Horace for his lyric compositions, Ovid for narrative passages, Virgil throughout for mythological examples, Lucan for at least one poem, and Pindar for the panegyric conventions that structure much of the collection. The title itself is thought to be taken from a lost collection by Lucan.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Statius fell out of favor because of his close relationship with Domitian and the extensive flattery of the emperor in the collection. Some scholars maintained the collection is subversive and uses mythological speakers to distance the poet from the most extreme praise.
Poliziano published an influential commentary on the Silvae in 1480 and is credited with popularizing the collection for western literature. He modeled his own poems on the Silvae and published his own collection under the title Sylvae, founding the convention of calling any collection of occasional poetry by that name.
In the preface to Book 1, Statius wrote that the poems "streamed from my pen in the heat of the moment, a sort of pleasurable haste, emerging from my bosom one by one." He stated that none of the poems took more than two days to compose, presenting them as inspired drafts refined into polished verse.