Oversized volume of biblical commentary published in 1543 (and again in 1549, 1557, 1585, 1594) that is actually a parody which features the erotic lexicon popular in its day

Glossary of approximately 11,800 Latin words with English translations from GB Folengo’s works (1543-1559)

Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) wrote and published in an era in which a highly developed erotic code was adopted by dozens and dozens of writers in Italy, and presumably understood by tens of thousands of readers in Europe. A most helpful text for decoding the erotic lexicon was written by Jean Toscan: Le carnaval du langage: le lexique érotique des…[Read more]

In 1525, Pietro Bembo in his Prose della volgar lingua published a condemnation of Dante’s Comedy that has often passed for linguistic and cultural criticism, yet might be better understood as satire.

Cuando Antonio Enríquez Gómez (AEG) escribió su comedia cidiana, El noble siempre es valiente, en la primavera de 1660, no podría sospechar el éxito que iba a gozar un siglo y medio más tarde, tanto en el teatro como en la imprenta. Entre el manuscrito (autógrafo, por lo menos en parte) de 5 abril 1660 y las primeras versiones del siglo XVIII…[Read more]

Irish Beef

The Irish were making trouble again, or so it seemed. The year was 1666, and relations between the Irish and the English, only recently becalmed following the close of the tumultuous Cromwellian period, were being roiled by a new crisis, this one having to do with large landowners and…[Read more]

De Moretussen wisten wat feesten was. Met hun tafels en buiken bourgondisch bol maakten ze er een waar schouwspel van. Ter gelegenheid van het huwelijk van Balthasar II Moretus (1615–1674) met de achttienjarige Anna Goos (1627–1691) kwamen de drukpersen zowaar tot leven! Onder impuls van de Antwerpse jezuïet Jacob de Cater droeg elke drukpers van…[Read more]

Heinsius jarig! Dat vieren we met wijn.

Daniel Heinsius (Heins – Δανιὴλ Εἱνσιάδης, 1580–1655) zag het levenslicht te Gent op 9 juni 1580, vandaag exact 441 jaar geleden. Omwille van hun protestantse geloof moesten zijn ouders echter al vroeg uitwijken naar Engeland; ze keerden na een tijdje terug naar de Lage Landen en vestigden zich in he…[Read more]

This is a PDF I made to aid in navigating the 1521 Baldus based on the 2 vol edition by Attilio Portioli (1882-9)

Here are four different versions of a traumatic scene from the life and times of Baldus, starting with the woodcut print of Folengo’s 1521 Macaronic Works

Scanned images of woodcut prints from subsequent editions of Folengo’s 1521 Macaronic Works

51 full-page woodcut prints illustrate Folengo’s 1521 epic poem Baldus

The greatly augmented and extremely popular 1521 ediion of Folengo’s Macaronic Works features many extras: angry letters, highly laudatory letters, an accusation of text theft, a revealing dialogue and more

A letter from Folengo’s pseudonym-personality, Merlin, to the printer Paganini, claiming that he does not want to relinquish his own copy for publication; a response from Paganini telling him that he got a copy of the text from Federico Gonzaga (accompanied by the letter Gonzaga sent to Paganini, 1520); a letter to the reader from Paganini, and a…[Read more]

A comparison of all the marginal glosses from the epic poemn Baldus by Teofilo Folengo in the 1517 Paganini edition and in the 1520 reprint by Cesare Arrivabene: side by side comparison and translation into English

The first edition of the Macaronic works of Teofilo Folengo (called Paganini/ P after the publisher) is a beautiful work printed in graceful Italic font, 27 lines per page, with explanatory and humorous glosses in the margins.