PULCI, LUIGI, an Italian poet of distinguished family, was b. at Florence, Dec. 3, 1431, and devoted his life to study and to literary composition. He was one of the most intimate friends of Lorenzo de Medici and of Poliziano, from the latter of whom he derived no little assistance in the composition of his poem Il Morgante Maggiore (Morgante the Giant), This celebrated work, a burlesque epic (in 28 cantos), of which Roland is th4 hero, is a vivacious parody of the romances of Carlovingian chivalry, which had become (as Pulci thought) undeserved popularly in Italy. His mocking imagin ation took a pleasure in turning into ridicule the combats with giants, the feats of magicians, and all the incredible adventures that form the material basis of the medifeval epic; and he manages to do it with a wonderfully pleasant and original naiveté. But although the poem is essentially heroico-comic, it occasionally contains passages of the finest pathos, in which Pulci fortunately seems to forget his design of travestying the inventions of the troureres, and comes out undisguisedly as a real poet. Moreover, in the midst of the most extravagant buffooneries, we come upon the truest and most natural pictures of manners—the vanity and inconstancy of women, the avarice and ambition of men. Pulci died in 1487. The Morgante Maggiore is one
of the most valuable sources for acquiring a knowledge of the early Tuscan dialect, the niceties and idioms of which have been employed by Pulci with great skill. The first edition appeared at Florence in 1488, and has since been frequently reprinted. Other works of Pulci are a series of sonnets (often grossly indecent), La 13eca du Dieomano (a parody of a pastoral poem by Lorenzo de Confession a la San Vergf-ne, a novel; and some letters.—BERNAUDO PuLct, elder brother of Luigi, wrote an elegy on the death of Simonetta, mistress of Julian de Medici; and a poem on the passion of Christ, and also executed the first translation of the Eclogues of Virgil.—LucA Pui.cr, another brother, achieved some literary reputation too by his (Nostra di Lorenzo de Medici, a poem in honor of the success won by Lorenzo in a tournament; Il Cirifo Calvaveo metrical romance of chivalry; Driadeo d' Ancore, a pastoral poem; and kpistole Eroide. PU'LEX. See FLEA.