Here he seeks them, and here they deign to crown him poet:[425]

Ergo macaronicas illic cattavimus artes,
Et me grossiloquum vatem statuere sorores.

We have seen already that the maccaronic style involved a free use of plebeian Italian, imbedded in a mixed mass of classical and medieval Latinity. Folengo refined the usage of his predecessors, by improving the versification, adopting a more uniformly heroic tone, and introducing scraps of Mantuan dialect at unexpected intervals, so that each lapse into Italian has the force of a surprise—what the Greeks called παρὰ προσδοκιαν. The comic effect is produced by a sustained epical inflation, breaking irregularly into the coarsest and least pardonable freaks of vulgarity. It is as though the poet were improvising, emulous of Virgil; but the tide of inspiration fails him, he falls short of classical phrases to express his thoughts, and is forced in the hurry of the moment to avail himself of words and images that lie more close at hand. His Pegasus is a showy hack, who ambles on the bypaths of Parnassus, dropping now and then a spavined hock and stumbling back into his paces with a snort. His war-trumpet utters a sonorous fanfaronnade; but the blower loses breath, and breaks his note, or suffers it to lapse into a lamentable quaver.

Tifi Odassi, who may be regarded as Folengo's master in this species of verse, confined the Maccaronic Muse to quaintly-finished sketches in the Dutch style.[426] His pupil raised her to the dignity of Clio and composed an epic in twenty-five books. The length of this poem and the strangeness of the manner render it unpalatable to all but serious students at the present time. Its humor has evaporated, and the form itself strikes us as rococo. We experience some difficulty in sympathizing with those readers of the sixteenth century, who, perfectly acquainted with Latin poetry and accustomed to derive intellectual pleasure from its practice, found exquisite amusement in so cleverly constructed a parody. Nor is it possible for Englishmen to appreciate the more delicate irony of the vulgarisms, which Folengo adopted from one of the coarsest Italian dialects, and cemented with subtle skill upon the stately structure of his hexameters. Still we may remember that the Maccaronea was read with profit by Rabelais, and that much of Butler's humor betrays a strong affinity to this antiquated burlesque.

In substance the Maccaronea begins with a rehandling of the Orlandino. Guido, peerless among Paladins, wins the love of his king's daughter, Baldovina of France. They fly together into Italy, and she dies in giving birth to a son at Cipada, near Mantua. Guido disappears, and the boy, Baldus, is brought up by a couple of peasants. He believes himself to be their child, and recognizes the rustic boor, Zambellus, for his brother. Still the hero's nature reveals itself in the village urchin; and, like the young Orlando, Baldus performs prodigies of valor in his boyhood:

Non it post vaccas, at sæpe caminat ad urbem,
Ac ad Panadæ dispectum praticat illam;
In villam semper tornabat vespere facto,
Portabatque caput fractum gambasque macatas.

When he goes to school, he begins by learning his letters with great readiness. But he soon turns away from grammar to books of chivalry:

Sed mox Orlandi nasare volumina cœpit:
Non vacat ultra deponentia discere verba,
Non species, numeros, non casus atque figuras,
Non Doctrinalis versamina tradere menti:
Fecit de norma scartazzos mille Donati
Inque Perotinum librum salcicia coxit.
Orlandi solum, nec non fera bella Rinaldi
Aggradant; animum faciebat talibus altum:
Legerat Ancrojam, Tribisondam, gesta Danesi,
Antonæque Bovum, mox tota Realea Francæ,
Innamoramentum Carlonis et Asperamontem,
Spagnam, Altobellum, Morgantis facta gigantis.

And so forth through the whole list of chivalrous romances, down to the Orlando Furioso and the Orlandino. The boy's heart is set on deeds of daring. He makes himself the captain of a band of rogues who turn the village of Cipada upside down. Three of these deserve especial notice—Fracassus, Cingar, and Falchettus; since they became the henchmen of our hero in all his subsequent exploits. Fracassus was descended in the direct line from Morgante:

Primus erat quidam Fracassus prole gigantis,
Cujus stirps olim Morganto venit ab illo,
Qui bachiocconem campanæ ferre solebat
Cum quo mille hominum colpo sfracasset in uno.