The Facetiae or Jocose Tales of Poggio: Now Translated into English with the Latin Text Volume 1

by Poggio Bracciolini

Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive collection. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. Whilst the books in this collection have not been hand curated, an aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature. As a result of this book being first published many decades ago, it may have occasional imperfections. These imperfections may include poor picture quality, blurred or missing text. While some of these imperfections may have appeared in the original work, others may have resulted from the scanning process that has been applied. However, our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. While some publishers have applied optical character recognition (OCR), this approach has its own drawbacks, which include formatting errors, misspelt words, or the presence of inappropriate characters. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with an experience that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic book, and that the occasional imperfection that it might contain will not detract from the experience.

253 pages, Hardcover

First published August 11, 2015

About the author

Giovanni Francesco Poggio Bracciolini

"Pogius, rabula adeo indoctus ut etiam si vacaret obscoenitate, tamen indignus esset qui legeretur, adeo autem obscoenus ut etiam si doctissimus fuisset, tam esset a bonis viris reiiciendus." Erasmus, Opus Epistolarum, ed. Allen, Oxford 1906, I, p. 409 (letter to Christopher Fisher, 1505).

Reviews

[Adam McPhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

old jokes

[G. Salter · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Note: for those interested, Google Books has this entire public domain text scanned and available to read for free)
There are more miracle accounts/monster sightings in these first volume, and a few witty true stories about life at the papal court in the 1400s. Most of these witty comments still work today, although the explanatory notes and references help.
I suppose that goes to show that good comedy is based in its particular time, but the best of it transcends.
I also appreciated the introductory essay about Poggio's life and career.