Saleable Trifles, or, A Treasury for Laughing and Joking

Document notes

Original title: Nugae venales, sive Thesaurus ridendi & jocandi ad gravissimos severissimosque viros, patres melancholicorum conscriptos opus plane novum & necessarium A clandestine, anonymous Neo-Latin jestbook issued under the false imprint 'Prostant apud Neminem; sed tamen ubique' and mockingly dedicated to the fictitious 'conscript fathers of the melancholics.' The compilation gathers constraint-verse, mock-disputations, parodic testaments, macaronic poems, paradoxical encomia, and humanist facetiae, applying the full apparatus of scholastic, juridical, and medical learning—syllogism, definition, testamentary formula, medical prescription, etymology—with rigorous fidelity to form upon obscene, trivial, and scatological matter such as flatulence, cuckoldry, and the latrine. It embeds notable pieces including the all-P tautogram 'Pugna porcorum' (under the pseudonym Publius Porcius), the macaronic 'Flöia,' the late-antique 'Testamentum Porcelli,' a mock regimen sanitatis, chronograms, and paired misogynist and answering pieces, operating throughout in the joco-serium tradition of 'serio ludere.' 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
• View the original source file

Document excerpt

BIBLIOTECA NAZ. Vittorio Emanuele III XLII C 68 NAPOLI