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PASQUINADE

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Originally appearing in Volume V20, Page 885 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PASQUINADE , a variety of See also:

libel or See also:lampoon, of which it is not easy to give an exact See also:definition, separating it from other kinds. It should, perhaps, more especially See also:deal with public men and public things. The distinction, however, has been rarely observed in practice, and the See also:chief See also:interest in the word is its curious and rather legendary origin. According to the earliest version, given by Mazocchi in 1509, Pasquino was a schoolmaster (others say a cobbler), who had a biting See also:tongue, and lived in the 15th See also:century at See also:Rome. His name, at the end of that century or the beginning of the next, was transferred to a statue which had been dug up in 1501 in a mutilated See also:condition (some say near his See also:shop) and was set up at the corner of the Piazza Navona, opposite the See also:palace of See also:Cardinal Caraffa. To this statue it became the See also:custom to affix squibs on the papal See also:government and on prominent persons. At the beginning of the 16th century Pasquin had a partner provided for him in the shape of another statue found in the Campus Martins, said to represent a See also:river See also:god, and dubbed Marforio, a foro Marais. The regulation See also:form of the pasquinade then became one of See also:dialogue, or rather question and See also:answer, in which Marforio usually addressed leading inquiries to his friend. The proceeding soon attained a certain See also:European notoriety, and a printed collection of the squibs due to it (they were See also:long written in Latin See also:verse, with an occasional excursion into See also:Greek) appeared in 1509. In the first See also:book of Pantagruel (1532 or thereabouts) See also:Rabelais introduces books by Pasquillus and Marphurius in the See also:catalogue of the library of St See also:Victor,and later he quotes some utterances of Pasquin's in his letters to the See also:bishop of Maillezais. These, by the way, show that Pasquin was by no means always satirical, but dealt in See also:grave See also:advice and comment. The See also:original Latin pasquinades were collected in 1544, as Pasquillorum tomi duo, edited by Caelius See also:Secundus See also:Curio.

The See also:

vogue of these lampoons now became See also:general, and See also:rose to its height during the pontificate of See also:Sixtus V. (1585–1590). These utterances were not only called pasquinades (pasquinate) but simply pasquils (pasquillus, pasquillo, pasquille), and this form was sometimes used for the mythical personage himself. It was used in See also:English for purposes of See also:satire by See also:Sir See also:Thomas See also:Elyot, in his Pasquin the See also:Plain (1540) and by the See also:anonymous author of Pasquin in a See also:Trance (1566); but it was first made popular in See also:England by Thomas See also:Nash, who in 1589 began to sign his violent controversial See also:pamphlets with the See also:pseudonym of Pasquil of England. It continues to occur through the course of the Marprelate controversy as the See also:title of the enemy of the Puritans. These English lampoons were in See also:prose. The See also:French pasquils (examples of which may be found in See also:Fournier's Varietes historiques et litte'raires) were more usually in verse. In See also:Italy itself Pasquin is said not to have condescended to the See also:vernacular till the 18th century. Contemporary comic See also:periodicals, especially in Italy, still occasionally use the Marforio-Pasquino dialogue form. But this survival is purely artificial and See also:literary, and pasquinade has, as noted above, ceased to have any precise meaning.

End of Article: PASQUINADE

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