Le maccheronee Zanitonella - Baldus - Moscheide - Epigrammata

by Teofilo Folengo

"Le maccheronee" by Teofilo Folengo is a macaronic Latin poem written in the sixteenth century. This audacious work parodies traditional chivalric epics by overturning heroic and courtly values through paradoxical, surreal events. The protagonist Baldo, a peasant hero rather than a nobleman, embarks on wild adventures with his rough companions—battling tyrants, escaping prison, confronting pirates, slaying witch queens, and descending into Hell itself. Written in deliberately grotesque Latin mixed with dialect and vulgar elements, the poem celebrates peasant life in a world dominated by hunger, violence, and chaos.