This great theme is nothing less than monasticism in its vilest aspects.
[426] At the end of the Maccaronea I think there may be an allusion to Odassi conveyed in these words, Tifi Caroloque futuris.
[427] I do not recognize Pulicanus, who is said to be the ancestor of Falchettus. Is it a misprint for Fulicanus? Fulicano is a giant in Bello's Mambriano, one of Folengo's favorite poems of romance.
[428] Mac. iii. The edition I quote from is that of Mantua (?) under name of Amsterdam, 1769 and 1771, 2 vols. 4to. See vol. i. p. 117, for a satire on the frauds and injustice of a country law-court, followed by a mock heroic panegyric of the Casa Gonzaga. The description of their celebrated stud and breed of horses may be read with interest.
[429] The episode of Berta's battle with her sister Laena (Mac. iv. p. 144), the apostrophe to old age (Mac. v. p. 152), the village ball (ibid. p. 163), the tricks played by Cingar on Zambellus (ibid. p. 168, and Mac. vi.), the description of the convent of Motella (Mac. vii. 196), the portrait of the ignorant parish-priest (Mac. vii. p. 202), the Carnival Mass (Mac. viii. p. 212), followed by a drunken Ker Mess (ibid. p. 214), are all executed in the broad style of a Dutch painter, and abound in realistic sketches of Lombard country-life.
[430] Mac. vii. p. 204.
[431] Mac. vii. p. 212. Folengo seems to have been fond of music. See the whimsical description of four-part singing, Mac. xx. p. 139, followed by the panegyric of Music and the malediction of her detractors.
[432] This episode of Cingar's triumph over the enemies of Baldus, his craft, his rhetoric, his ready wit, his infinite powers of persuasion, his monkey tricks and fox-like cunning, is executed with an energy of humor and breadth of conception, that places it upon a level with the choicest passages in Rabelais.
[433] Mac. xii. p. 296.
[434] In the course of this oration Folengo introduces an extraordinarily venomous invective against contadini, which may be paralleled with his allegory in the Orlandino. It begins (Mac. xiii. p. 11):