THEOPHILUS, better known by his assumed name of Merlin Cocazio, an eccentric genius, and burlesque poet, was descended of a noble family of Mantua, and born at a place called Cipada, beyond the suburb of St George on the lower lake, in the year 1491. From his infancy he showed great quickness and vivacity of mind, a decided taste for poetry, and a singular facility of turning everything which occurred into verse. According to Tomassini and others, he completed his studies at Bologna, and at the age of sixteen entered the order of Benedictines of the congregation of Monte Cassino, near Brescia, where his elder brother had taken the vows about three months before. He then assumed the name of Theophilus instead of Jerome, which was his baptismal name, and eighteen months afterwards he made profession as Benedictine. At first his life was regular; but a new superior of the monastery of Brescia, where he had become professed, having permitted or introduced great disorders there, Folengo, led away by bad example, forgot his vows, and ended by quitting the monastery and his habit together, to stroll about with a pretty woman who had captivated his fancy. This young person, who is said to have been well born, is not directly mentioned by him in his works; but as he has put the letters of her name to a species of canzone or ode, consisting of thirteen verses, we thence collect that she was called Girolama Dieda. With this female he wandered about for ten years, having, as appears, no other resource for procuring a livelihood than his talents and his verses. He had commenced a poem in Latin, which, as far as it went, displayed much elegance; but he soon quitted serious poetry, in which he could at most only hope to obtain a secondary rank, for a kind which he called Macaronic, and in which he conceived himself qualified to occupy the first place. The basis of the language employed by him is Latin, mixed with Italian words, and still more with the Mantuan patois, which was his mother tongue, and to which he gave Latin terminations. In his poem he recounts the ridiculous adventures of a hero called Baldus, among which are several which had happened to himself; and under the mask of burlesque and buffoonery may be found thoughts and maxims instinct with good sense, not to mention original and piquant touches of satire on the conduct of the great, the vanity of titles, and the different pursuits of men. It has been alleged that he gave the name of Macaronic to this strange species of composition, in which Latin is intermixed with Italian and Mantuan, because macaroni is seasoned with a mixture of flour, butter, and cheese; and in fact, to a mind like his, this fanciful and grotesque resemblance was sufficient. Instead of dividing his poem into books or cantos, he accordingly divided it into macarons (macaronea prima, macaronea secunda, etc.), of which there were seventeen in the first edition and twenty-five in the subsequent ones; and he published the whole under the name of Merlinus Cocajus, which afterwards became famous. In a few years several editions were published; but the success of these facetious productions did not prevent their being bitterly criticised. The author was severely censured, both for the style in which he wrote, and the license of ideas and expressions in which he indulged; a circumstance which irritated him so much that, changing his style, or rather language and name, he composed in three months a satirical Italian poem, in eight cantos, on the infancy of Roland, to which he gave the title of Orlandino, and affixed the name of Limerno Pitocco; Limerno being the anagram of Merlino, and Pitocco mendicant being significative of the state to which he was occasionally reduced. He had nevertheless made many friends in the world by the reputation which he had acquired, the extent of his knowledge, and the agreeable qualities of his mind; and he had even retained some in the cloister, into which, when tired of a wandering and miserable life, he was received back with open arms. He signalized his return by a work on the subject of his conversion, entitled II Chaos del Triperuano, or The Chaos of Three for One, meaning himself, who had been successively Theophilus Folengo, Merlin Cocazio, and Limerno.

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1 Folengo, in his verses, has several times mentioned the place of his birth in his own peculiar vein:

Magna suo veniat Merlino parva Cipada.— Mantua Virgilio gaudet, Verona Catullo, Dante suo florens urbs Tusca, Cipada Cocajo.— Nec Merlinus ego, laus, gloria, fama Cipadæ, etc. Pitocco. The work is a medley of verses, songs, and narrations, in Latin, Italian, and the Macaronic dialect, in short, a veritable chaos, divided into three parts, called, after Statius, Sylva. He then applied himself to correct his other works, and the Orlandino appeared in seven cantos instead of eight, with corrections and considerable suppressions, especially in the seventh canto. He also undertook to chasten the Macarones; and having completed this labour, he entrusted the publication of the purified edition to his brother Francisco Folengo. But although these two works were thus rendered less exceptionable and more orthodox, the corrected editions have fallen into oblivion. Folengo appears to have remained during several years at Capri, a country-house belonging to his order, between Brescia and Bergamo, and, in fact, to have divided his time between this retreat and Brescia till 1536 or 1537, in one or other of which years he composed his Italian poem on the Humanity of the Son of God, the most orthodox of all his works, and which would be the most edifying if one could really be edified by that which is unreadable. He was then sent into Sicily to the monastery of St Martin delle Scale, where he appears to have remained till 1543, when he returned into Italy, and retired to the convent of the Holy Cross of Campesi, near Bassano, on the banks of the Brenta, where he died in little more than a year afterwards, 9th December 1544, in the fifty-third year of his age. The following is a list of his works: 1. Merlino Cocoy Poeta Mantuanus Macaronices libri xvii. Venice, 1517, in 8vo; 2. Orlandino, per Limerno Pitocco da Mantova composto, Venice, 1526, in 8vo; 3. Chaos del Tripennino, con privilegio, Venice, 1527, in 8vo; 4. La Humana del Figliuolo di Dio, in ottava rima, per Theophilo Folengo Mantovano, Venice, 1533, in 8vo; 5. Joannis Bapt. Chrysogoni Folengi Mantuan anchorette dialogi quos Pomiliones vocat, 1533, in 8vo; 6. Several Poems, the greater part on subjects of devotion, and some also in the Macaronic vein, which have not been printed.