Abstract

The "Liber facetiarum" of Poggio Bracciolini offers a very interesting perspective to observe the functions of comic literature and the relationship between Authority and Transgression, in a historical moment, such as the first half of the fifteenth century, in which the philological rediscovery of classical culture imposed a general rethinking of ethical and aesthetic basis of western civilization. The aim of this paper is to briefly cover the "Liber facetiarum2 of Poggio Bracciolini highlighting the thematic line of the anticlerical satire and the joke inherent in the sphere of the sacred and religion. The collection of "Facetiae" - that mixed Ciceronian witticisms and puns with humble matter of the vernacular narrative, the classical rhetoric "de risu" with the realism of the Tuscan "novella" - allows the writer to address the major themes of his moral reflection on the ambiguous and irreverent sphere of the comic. The analysis will focus, on one hand, on satirical processes, on the other hand, on the transgressive, parodic and even obscene way with which Poggio manipulates the phenomenology of the sacred (biblical passages, evangelical anecdotes, religious vocabulary and rituals).