The horror of the situation at the center of the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis has historically prompted a myriad of attempts to reconcile the apparently sadistic demands of God with normal human sensibilities. The tension–both in the story itself and in critical reactions to the story–is inherently dramatic, but the…[Read more]

GB Folengo Commentry on Psalm 51, translated into English with brief annotations

overview on the history of the card game “Höllfahren” or “in die Höll”

Musical celebrations of the feast of St Cecilia were common in Europe since the fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth century. Of the many composers who wrote music for this festivity we find four mid-sixteenth-century compositions by French composers. Two motets Cantantibus orgnis and Cecilia virgo gloriosa – by Pierre Certon which…[Read more]

The first section of the text of the unusual 1533 volume published by both Giovanni Battista and Teofilo Folengo: dialogues and prose pieces, inclduing the first of the Psalms commentaries published, together with a translation into English and annotations.

Surprising volume of what looks like biblical commentary but is parody and erotica

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]

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]