Teofilo Folengo

Teofilo Folengo (Italian pronunciation: [teˈɔːfilo foˈleŋɡo]; 8 November 1491 – 9 December 1544), who wrote under the pseudonym of Merlino Coccajo or Merlinus Cocaius in Latin, was one of the principal Italian macaronic poets.

Biography

Folengo was born of noble parentage at Cipada near Mantua, Italy.

From his infancy he showed great vivacity of mind, and a remarkable cleverness in making verses. At the age of sixteen he entered the monastery of Sant'Eufemia near Brescia, and eighteen months afterwards he became a professed member of the Benedictine order.

For a few years his life as a monk seems to have been tolerably regular, and he is said to have produced a considerable quantity of Latin verse, written, not unsuccessfully, in the Virgilian style.

About the year 1516 he forsook the monastic life for the society of a well-born young woman named Girolama Dieda, with whom he wandered about the country for several years, often suffering great poverty, having no other means of support than his talent for writing.

Later in his life Folengo decided to return to the Church. After four years of penance in which he lived as a hermit, he was re-admitted to the order in 1534.

In 1538 he was sent to Sicily near Palermo, together with many others monks from Mantua. He spent in Sicily some of his later years, under the patronage of Ferrante Gonzaga, who served the emperor Charles V as Viceroy of Sicily (1535–1546).

He appears to have been based at the abbey of San Martino delle Scale (Monreale). In 1543 he retired to the Santa Croce monastery of Campese, near Bassano; and there he died on 9 December 1544.