316 
of Carimture 
Gratqfque 
and 
Latin form to words taken from the vulgar tongue, a11d mixing them 
with words which are purely Latin, was introduced in Italy at the clofe 
of the fifteenth century. 
Four Italian Writers in rnacaronic verfe are known to have lived 
before the year I500." The iirtt of thefe was named FOH'a, and he tells 
us that he compofed his poem entitled "Vigonce," on the fecond day of 
May, 1494.. It was printed in 1502. Ballano, a native of Mantua, and 
the author of a rnacarouic which bears no title, was dead in 1499; and 
another, a Paduan named Fifi degli Odafii, was born about the year 1450. 
Giovan Georgie Allione, of Afti, who is believed alfo to have written 
during the laft ten years of the fifteenth century, is a name better known 
through the edition of his French works, publifhed by Monfieur J. C. 
Brunet in 1836. All thefe prefent the fame coarlenefs and vulgarity of 
fentiment, and the fame licence in language and defcription, which appear 
to have been taken as necelfary characteriitics of macaronic compofition. 
Odalli appears to give fupport to the derivation of the name from 
macaroni, by making the principal character of his poem a fabricator of that 
article in Padua-- 
Efi unu: in Padua narusjteciale czyinus, 
In macclmranea prinreps bonus atquu mag-ijler. 
But the great mailer of macaronic poetry was Teofilo Folengo, of 
whofe life we know jutl fuficient to give us a notion of the perfonal 
charaditer of thefe old literary caricaturills. Folengo was defcended from 
a noble family, which had its feat at the village of Cipada, near Mantna, 
where he was born on the 8th of November, 1491, and baptifed by the 
name of Girolamo. He purfuecl his Rudies, full in the univerfity of 
Ferrara, under the profeffor Vifago Cocaio, and afterwards in that of 
Bologna, under Pietro Pomponiazzo ; or rather, he ought to have purfued 
them 
 
'9 The great authority on the history of Macaronic literature is my excellent 
friend Monsieur Octave Dclcpicrre, and I will simply refer the render to his two 
valuable publications, " Macaronfzana, ou Meilanges dc Littdrature Macaroniquc 
des differents Peuples dc l'Eur0pe," 8vo., Paris, 1852; and " Muc:1ron6ana," 4ro , 
1863 ; the latter printed For the Philobihlon Club.