Macaronea
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Macaronea or Carmen Macaronicum de Patavinisis ("Macaronic Song from Padua") a comical poem by the Italian Renaissance poet Tifi Odasi. It is considered to be the earliest example of macaronic verse, and the genre's namesake.
The year of first printing is not indicated on the book itself, but is believed to be 1488 or 1489. The author's pen name is given as "Tifi" in the frontispice, and as "Tifetus" in an acrostic that precedes the text.
The title of the poem is thought to come from maccerone, a kind of pasta or dumpling eaten by peasants at the time. Macaronea tells of a prank applied by a band of university students (macaronea secta) on an apothecary. It is written in a mix of Latin and Italian, in hexameter verse (as would befit a classical Latin poem). It reads as a satire of the bogus humanism and pedantism of doctors, scholars and bureaucrats of the time.
The poem was a success; it was reprinted several times, and inspired many other Macaronea in the following decades.
The following excerpt describes the preparation for a magical rite where a duck would be served:
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See also
- Catinia by Sicco Polenton
- Repetitio Zanini by Ugolino Pisani
- Tosontea by Corrado of Padua
- Baldo by Teofilo Folengo
- Macharonea medicinalis by Gian Giacomo Bortolotti
- Macharonea by Vincenzo Baglioni
