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. Fortunately, there is good scholarly work which makes deciphering the erotic code possible.
A foundational text is The Latin Sexual Vocabulary by J.N. Adams (Baltimore, John Hopkins, 1982), easily found in libraries, PDFs online and the paperback edition to purchase. In order to use this book, one needs to understand Latin and Greek, so I put together a guide in English:
Guide with Definitions for The Latin Sexual Vocabulary by J. N. Adams by Ann Mullaney July 6, 2024
Most helpful for understanding the lexicon is the work done by Jean Toscan, who first published his analysis 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 PDFs of it circulate. Here below is the digitized table of contents from Toscan’s work, and a draft translation of the contents into English.
Toscan Table matieres May 5 2023
Jean Toscan Table of Contents May 5 2023
Jean Toscan Original and English Table of Contents
A database with ~2,200 words from Toscan’s lexique érotique: Erotic Lexicon July 1 2019
A partial list of Italian writers using the erotic lexicon, c. 1300-1555
Italian authors using erotic lexicon 2019
Work I have done on the erotic lexicon can be found on this website, for example:
Teofilo Folengo: Hoe of Hoes August 24 2020
Giovanni Battista Folengo, Samples 1-4; Thematic-Index-of-Sexual-Terminology-in-the-Dialogi-update-2024
Pietro Bembo: Pietro Bembo Erotic lexicon Mar 15 2020
Pacifico Massimi/ Pacificus Maximus (c.1406-1506): extremely helpful edition with a French translation and notes as well as textual variants: Les Cent Elégies by Juliette Desjardins, Grenoble, ELLUG, 1986. Pacifico was a disarmingly self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing poet born in the Marche region of Italy; he published a first set of 100 poems in Latin when he was about 80 years old, Hecatelegium, Florence, A. Miscomino, 1489. Text transcribed by me with a few English translations: PACIFICO MASSIMI Heacatelegium April 27 2020
Books by other scholars which decode the lexicon for specific writers: this is list which needs to be updated.
Rustico Filippi (c. 1235-c. 1295): Sonetti satirici e giocosi by Rustico Filippi, introduced and edited with detailed notes by Silvia Buzzetti Gallarati (Rome: Carocci, 2005).
Bronzino, Agnolo di Cosimo (1503-1572): Bronzino: Renaissance Painter as Poet by Deborah Parker (Cambridge UP, 2000): translations, notes and analysis.
Alfonso de’ Pazzi (1509-155): Nuovi Canti Carnascialeschi di Firenze: Le “canzone” e mascherate di Alfonso de’ Pazzi edited and analyzed by Aldo Castellani (Città di Castello, Olschki, 2006).
Emblem of Robert Winters, Basel, end page Poematia aliquot insignia illustrium Poetarum recentiorum, 1544
| Macaronic Athena |