The Erotic Lexicon at Work
A great many Italian writers of the 14th-16th century drew on an erotic lexicon used by writers of Latin and Italian. Most helpful for understanding this lexicon is the work done by Jean Toscan, who first published his analyses as a 4 volume (!) dissertation: Le carnaval du langage: le lexique érotique des poètes de l’équivoque de Burchiello à Marino (Lille, Presses Universitaires, (1978) 1981). Toscan’s work is widely available in libraries and there are PDFs of it which circulate. Here below is the digitized table of contents from Toscan’s work, and a draft translation into English.
Toscan Table matieres May 5 2023
Jean Toscan Table of Contents May 5 2023
Jean Toscan Original and English Table of Contents
I have entered about 2,200 words from Toscan’s Lexique érotique into a database and invite scholars to add entries from other sources:
Very useful is The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, J.N. Adams (Baltimore, John Hopkins, 1982), easily found in paperback and in PDF.
Guide with Definitions for The Latin Sexual Vocabulary by J. N. Adams by Ann Mullaney July 6, 2024
A partial list of Italian writers using the erotic lexicon, c. 1300-1555
Italian authors using erotic lexicon 2019
Teofilo Folengo: Hoe of Hoes August 24 2020
Giovvani Battista Folengo, Dialogi, quos Pomiliones vocat, 1533 Index of Sexual Terminology by Ann Mullaney 2013/ 2024 Thematic Index of Sexual Termijnology in GB Folengo Pomiliones 1533
in the Dialogi quos Po2013 2024
Other authors:
Pacifico Massimi/ Pacificus Maximus (c.1406-1506), at once a disarmingly self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing poet born in the Marche region of Italy, published a first set of 100 poems in Latin when he was about 80 years old, Hecatelegium, Florence, A. Miscomino, 1489.
There is an extremely helpful edition with a French translation and notes as well as textual variants: Les Cent Elégies by Juliette Desjardins, Grenoble, ELLUG, 1986.
Text transcribed by me with a few English translations:
PACIFICO MASSIMI Heacatelegium April 27 2020
Emblem of Robert Winters, Basel, end page Poematia aliquot insignia illustrium Poetarum recentiorum, 1544
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