FOLENGO, TEOFILO otherwise known as Marlino Coccajo or Cocajo, one of the principal Italian macaronic poets, was born of noble parentage at Cipada near Mantua on Nov. 8, 1491. At sixteen he entered the monastery of Monte Casino near Brescia, and eighteen months afterwards he became a professed member of the Benedictine order. About 1516 he forsook the monastic life for the society of a well-born young woman named Girolama Dieda, with whom he wandered about Italy, supporting himself by his talent for versification. His first work was the Merlini Cocaii macaronicon, telling the adventures of a fictitious hero named Baldus. The coarse buffoonery of this work is often relieved by touches of genuine poetry, as well as by graphic descriptions and acute criticisms of men and manners. His next work was the Orlandino (15a 6) an Italian poem of eight cantos, written in rhymed octaves. It bore on the title-page the pseudonym of Limerno Pitocco (Merlin the Beggar) da Mantova. In the same year Folengo returned to his ecclesiastical obedience; and shortly afterwards wrote his Chaos del tri per uno, in which, partly in prose, partly in verse, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in Italian, and sometimes in macaronic, he gives a veiled account of the vicissitudes of his life. About 1533 he wrote in rhymed octaves a life of Christ entitled L'Umanitd del Figliuolo di Dio; and he is known to have composed, still later, another religious poem upon the creation, fall and restoration of man, and some tragedies. In 1543 he retired to Santa Croce di Campesio, near Bassano; and there he died on Dec. 9, Folengo is frequently quoted and still more frequently copied by Rabelais. The earlier editions of his Opus macaronicum are rare. The edition of 153o exhibits the text as revised by the author.
See E. Fabbrovich, Merlin Cocai, Studio critico con annessa antologid dei maccheroni (Turin, 1923) .