ABSTRACT
From the Latin of the classical authors being given a trivial application was born the ars macaronica. Arising at a time when humanist creativity was waning for too strict an adherence to the classical model, macaronic Latin deliberately transposed the latter’s loftiness into the realm of the body, with its functions and apertures. From intellectual Padua hailed the poet Tifi degli Odasi, author of the Macaronea and acknowledged precursor to the most celebrated macaronic writer, Teofilo Folengo. The erudite Folengo was also literary heir to Luigi Pulci who, with his Morgante, was the first to satirize chivalric literature by bringing to the genre a macaronic inventiveness. Folengo implies that such corporeal surfeit (clearly absent in the classical Muses) is congruous with his Muses’ superior inspirational capabilities. The comic potential of an exalted language descended to and spoken in the kitchen not only had a liberating effect on Latin, but also spawned linguistic experiments that privileged a relationship with the edible.
