He had a brief life at the Catholic monastic Benedictine order but left it to be with a woman. After years of poverty and writing, he again joined an abbey of San Martino delle Scale, in Sicily and in later years to Santa Croce monastery at Veneto, northern Italy in 1543. So the religious influence in his writings can be seen. Amongst many of his narrative poems in Macaronic verse - which is poetry in more than one language - the themes are mostly to do with mystic creatures. But the years at the monastery resulted in him writing rhymed octaves of the life of Christ, named L'Umanità del Figliuolo di Dio. Later he also wrote a poem upon the creation, fall and restoration of man.
Baldus (1517) is a work by Italian macaronic poet Teofilo Folengo.
Teofilo Folengo's first work, under the pseudonym Merlin Cocaio, was the macaronic narrative poem Baldo or Baldus, which narrates the adventures of a fictitious hero named Baldo. He is a descendant of French royalty and a juvenile delinquent who encounters imprisonment. He is constantly at odds with local authorities, pirates, shepherds, witches, and demons. The poem shows how his various companions - a giant, a centaur, a magician, and his best friend Cingar, a trickster all assist him in his journey and in his battles.
Image - Cingar frees Baldus from prison, scene from Teofilo Folengo's poem Baldus
Illustration courtesy - Geschichte der Italienischen Litteratur von den altesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart, by Berthold Wiese and Erasmo Percopo (Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna, 1899).
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