Pasquinade

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Pasquinade

a work with satirical distortions and malicious attacks intended to insult and compromise an individual, group, party, or social movement. The term is derived from the name of the Roman shoemaker Pasquino (15th century), an author of biting epigrams directed against people in high positions.

The pasquinade is most often used to discredit political opponents. For example, W. Menzel’s German Literature contained attacks on Schiller, Goethe, and modern French literature. M. A. Korf’s The Accession of Nicholas I to the Throne (1848), which blackened the reputation of the Decembrists, was compiled on the direct orders of Nicholas I. To repudiate Korf’s book, A. I. Herzen and N. P. Ogarev published a collection based on documentary evidence, December 14, 1825, and Emperor Nicholas. N. M. Iazykov and D. V. Davydov wrote pasquinades in verse to ridicule P. Ia. Chaadaev for his Philosophical Letter. Many writers, especially those connected with the liberation movement, were obliged to defend themselves from pasquinades. In Russian literature, the “antinihilist novel” acquired certain features of the pasquinade (for example, V. P. Kliushnikov’s The Mirage and A. F. Pisemskii’s Troubled Seas). Unlike the pamphlet, which it resembles in its denunciatory style, the pasquinade is not an officially recognized literary genre.

A. L. GRISHUNIN

References in periodicals archive ?

The anti-papal tone of the renaissance and baroque pasquinade is here subverted by a satirical image targeting a supposedly 'secular' form of authority (the American presidency), which has, through its use of crusading language, appropriated the moral authority of the catholic church, while ignoring the Pope's own opposition to war in Iraq.

'Shattered visages': speaking statues from the ancient world

After the 16th century the vogue of posting pasquinades died out, and the term acquired its more general meaning.

pasquinade

The poem suffered a series of name changes: she calls it "The Beast" in 1965, "Tom Fool" later that year, and it becomes an "item" in her "pasquinade" period in 1968.

Works in progress: the uncollected poetry of Barnes's Patchin Place period

The 1525 comedy still has the qualities that define a pasquinade. It offers the audience the opportunity to participate in the pleasure of immediate recognition or comprehension, most especially in the prologue when the First Histrion taunts the public with a harangue that is both insulting and titillating.

Petrus Aretinus acerrimus virtutum ac vitiorum demonstrator

She also situates his satirical works in relation to the genre of pasquinades, witty sayings and poems lampooning mostly prominent figures in the Roman Curia that since the early sixteenth century were customarily displayed on a certain particular in Rome ("Petrus Aretinus acerrimus virtutum ac vitiorum demonstrator').

Introduction: speaking truth to power from medieval to modern Italy

The often-hostile reception of Urban VIII was exemplified in the Pasquinades and propaganda against him despite his great patronage of the arts and in part because of his nepotism and much-criticized conduct in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).

The Papacy Since 1500: From Italian Prince to Universal Pastor

Especially innovative are the chapters, "The City," on the transmission of information in Venice, and "Communicative Transactions," which compares different forms of communication, from official publications to the political gossip in barbershops and pharmacies and the posting of anonymous pasquinades.

Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics

and the other a statement from Crocker's New Whig Guide: 'Political Pasquinades and Political Caricatures are parts (though humble ones) of Political history.

Ira Aldridge at Covent Garden, April 1833

Later identified as Menelaus with the Body of Patroclus, this was probably unearthed midway through the fifteenth century; it acquired the name Pasquino early in the sixteenth when Roman citizens began literally attaching satiric verses or "pasquinades" to it.

Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture

The literal "blissful obliteration" in marriage on Purilia is the culmination of Rice's witty pasquinades upon Hollywood's simultaneous representation and suppression of human sexuality (the Purilians have no genitals).

World upon World, Genre and History: Patrick Hamilton's "Impromptu in Moribundia"

The pasquinades characteristic satirical verses displayed on the ancient statue in Rome called `Pasquino') marking Leo's death in 1521 gave particular attention to his love of music, not as a praiseworthy characteristic but as a stick with which to beat him; one had the burden, `Mourn, musicians of Rome!