in
and Art.
Literature
313
invented for the ftatue, people agreed to give it the name of the fhoemaker,
and they called it Pafqnillo. It became a cuitom, at certain feafons, to
Write on pieces of paper fatirical epigrams, fonnets, and other fhort com-
pofitions in Latin or Italian, moitly of a perfonal charaeter, in which the
writer declared whatever he had feen or heard to the difcredit of fomebody,
and thefe were publifhed by depoliting them with the ftatue, whence
they were taken and read. One of the Latin epigrams which pleads
againit committing thefe fhort perfonal fatires to print, calls the time at
which it was ufual to compofe them Pafquil's feftival
jam redi! illa dies in qua Ramana ju-ventu:
Pafguilli fkjium concelzbralvit 0-vans,
Sad -verfus imprgjh olzfecro ut edere amirtas,
Ne noceant iterum qua rzocuere fame].
The feftival was evidently a favourite one, and well celebrated. " The
foldiers of Xerxes," ihys another epigram, placed in Pafquil's mouth,
" were not fo plentiful as the paper befcowed upon me ; I {hall foou become
a bookfeller
Armigerzfm Xerxi non copia tzmta pnpyri
Quanta milzi : jiam bibliopolajlntim.
The name of Pafquil was foon given to the papers which were
depofited with the Ptatue, and eventually a pafguil, or pajfuin, was only
another name for a lampoon or libel. Not far from this Ptatue flood
another, which was found in the forum of Mars (lllartis forum), and
was thence popularly called Marforio. Some of thcfe fatirical writings
were cornpofed in the form of dialogues between Pafquil and Marforio,
or of ineilages from one to the other.
A colleetion of thefe pafquils was publilhed in 154.4 in two frnall
volumes." Many of them are extremely clever, and theyare Iharply pointed.
The popes are frequent objects of bittereft fatire. Thus we are reminded
in two lines upon pope Alexander VI. (jizxtus), the infamous Borgia, that
Tarquin had been a Sextus, and Nero alfo, and now another Sextus was
at
'4 Pasquillnrum
Tomi duo."
Eleutheropoli, MDXLIIII.
