Teofilo Folengo (1491-1544), although the author of several very popular volumes, remains largely unknown today. His lack of fame is partially due to his extensive use of pseudonyms: he is better known as Merlin Cocaio or Aquario Lodola than as Teofilo Folengo. The web of biographies which Folengo wove around his pseudo-personages caught the attention of too many positivist critics. These scholars have executed valuable studies on Folengo's "real" life, but in doing so they have discarded his intricate play of authorial figures. In addition to the dozen prefatory "operetti" and the myriad cameo appearances of authorial names and authorial personalities within the texts, there is one entire volume, the Chaos del Triperuno, which is dedicated to the evolution of one self from the interaction among Folengo's leading pseudo-selves. This work especially merits the consideration of scholars who are not intent upon proving the Catholic or the unorthodox nature of the Benedictine Folengo's writings. While it is true that the monk took a firm stance on many of the salient issues of his day: faith over works, mistrust of intermediaries for confession and prayer, the improperness of buying salvation and the necessity of clerical reform, as well as the "questione della lingua," the "moderns versus the ancients," etc., he is far too rich an author to be co-opted by any one group.

The Chaos is composed mainly in Italian poetry and prose, but the epic poem for which Merlin Cocaio is justly famous, is written in Macaronic Latin (a hybrid construct of Classical Latin and northern Italian dialects). Folengo's choice of this language--in use in the late fifteenth century mostly for short humorous poems--for his 15,000 hexameter Baldus constitutes another reason for our poet's scant fame. Macaronic Latin is not an easy language to read.

"Teofilo Folengo: Ecce Homo" examines in chronological order, the appearances of the author within and around all of his major works. It examines these passages directly and does not explain them away as true or false according to information gleaned from other sources. This dissertation also addresses itself to the problem of Folengo's lack of recognition in his own era, despite the vast number of printings and reprintings of his works. Teofilo very often alludes to contemporary poets; he praises Ariosto extensively and chides him for his failure to acknowledge his indebtedness to Boiardo. But only Rabelais seems to have embraced Folengo, or rather, Merlin Cocaio, as one of the great authors of his day. "Teofilo Folengo: Ecce Homo" presents a well-rounded view of the author in his works and in his world.