The ''Facetiae'' is an anthology of jokes by

Poggio Bracciolini Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He was responsible for rediscovering and recovering many clas ...

(1380–1459), first published in 1470. It was the first printed joke book. The collection, "the most famous jokebook of the Renaissance", is notable for its inclusion of scatological jokes and tales, six of the tales involving flatulation humor and six involving defecation.

Printing history

Early editions of the ''Facetiae'' are rare, and they are not yet described in an organized fashion as is common for ''incunabula''. It was, evidently, very popular: an 1894 bibliography lists twenty editions from the fifteenth century, and states that the oldest is printed by Georgius Lauer in Rome and is known as Hain 13179 (a

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

with 110 leaves). The second oldest is called Reichling 1919 (100 leaves). The 100-leaf edition, despite having been described elsewhere as the first printing, is now generally held to be later than the 110-leaf edition, which is traditionally thought to be the

editio princeps In classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand. For ...

; both were printed in Rome in 1470/1471. An edition from 1473–1476, Hain 13182, was printed somewhere in Poland. Christophorus Valdarfer in Venice likewise printed an edition (with 76 leaves) in 1470/1471, and Andreas Belfortis in Ferrara printed one dated 1471. According to

Lotte Hellinga Lotte Hellinga, FBA (née Querido, born 1932) is a book historian and expert in early printing. She is an authority on the work of William Caxton. Early life Lotte Hellinga was born in 1932. She studied at the University of Amsterdam under Wyt ...

, the Venice edition by Valdarfer is probably older than Lauer's edition printed in Rome, and most likely served as its exemplar. There are surviving manuscript copies from the fifteenth century.MS Lat 188
Houghton Library, Harvard University

Tales

The last tale on farting involves a wife and her husband. The wife, observing a ram copulating with a sheep, asks how the ram chooses his mate, to which the husband answers that the ram chooses the sheep that farts. He confirms to her that humans work the same way, after which she farts, and they have sex; she farts again, with the same result. When she farts a third time, the husband says, "I'm not making love to you again, even if you shit out your soul."

References

{{Reflist

External links

Facetiae, 1879 English version
on The Internet Archive
Latin version
1470 books Joke books Medieval Latin texts 15th-century Latin books Flatulence humor