A pasquinade or pasquil is a form of satire, usually an anonymous brief lampoon in verse or prose,[1][2] and can also be seen as a form of literary caricature.[3] The genre became popular in early modern Europe, in the 16th century,[4] though the term had been used at least as early as the 4th century, as seen in Augustine's City of God.[citation needed] Pasquinades can take a number of literary forms, including song, epigram, and satire.[3] Compared with other kinds of satire, the pasquinade tends to be less didactic and more aggressive, and is more often critical of specific persons or groups.[3]
The name "pasquinade" comes from Pasquino, the nickname of a Hellenistic statue, the remains of a type now known as a Pasquino Group, found in the River Tiber in Rome in 1501 – the first of a number of "talking statues of Rome"[4][5] which have been used since the 16th century by locals to post anonymous political commentary.[6]
The verse pasquinade has a classical source in the satirical epigrams of ancient Roman and Greek writers such as Martial, Callimachus, Lucillius, and Catullus.[1][3] The Menippean satire has been classed as a type of pasquinade.[3] During the Roman Empire, statues would be decorated with anonymous brief verses or criticisms.[5]
- ^ a b Spaeth, John W. (1939). "Martial and the Pasquinade". Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. 70: 242–255. doi:10.2307/283087. ISSN 0065-9711. JSTOR 283087.
- ^ Indiana Slavic Studies. Indiana University. 2000. p. 10.
- ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference
MichałowskaOtwinowska1990was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Nussdorfer, Laurie (23 April 2019). Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII. Princeton University Press. pp. 8–10. ISBN 978-0-691-65635-9.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Sullivan, George H. (2006-05-15). Not Built in a Day: Exploring the Architecture of Rome. Hachette Books. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-7867-1749-1.