Pasquino or Pasquin is the name used by Romans

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 to describe a battered Hellenistic-style statue dating to the 3rd century BC, which was unearthed in the Parione

Parione

For the isopod genus in the family Bopyridae, see Parione Parione is the VI rione of Rome.Its name comes from the fact that in the area there was a huge ancient wall, maybe belonging to the stadium of Domitianus; the nickname people gave to this wall was Parietone , from which the name "Parione"...

 district of Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 in the 15th century. The statue's fame dates to the early 16th century, when Cardinal Oliviero Carafa

Oliviero Carafa

Oliviero Carafa was an Italian cardinal and diplomat of the Renaissance. Like the majority of his era's prelates, he displayed the lavish and conspicuous standard of living that was expected of a prince of the Church...

 draped the marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

 torso of the statue in a toga and decorated it with Latin epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

s on the occasion of Saint Mark's Day. From this incident are derived the English-language terms pasquinade and pasquil, which refer to an anonymous lampoon

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 in verse or prose.

The Cardinal's actions led to a custom of criticizing the pope or his government by the writing of satirical poems

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 in broad Roman dialect

Romanesco

Romanesco or Romanesque is a regional language or sociolect subsumed within the Italian language spoken in Rome. It is part of the Central Italian dialects and is thus genetically closer to the Tuscan dialect and Standard Italian....

--called "pasquinades" from the Italian "pasquinate"--and attaching them to the statue "Pasquino". Thus Pasquino became the first "talking statue" of Rome

Talking statues of Rome

The talking statues of Rome provided an outlet for a form of anonymous political expression in Rome. Criticisms in the form of poems or witticisms were posted on well-known statues in Rome...

. He spoke out about the people's dissatisfaction, denounced injustice, and assaulted misgovernment by members of the Church.

Etymological origins

The origin of the name, "Pasquino", remains obscure. By the mid-sixteenth century it was reported that the name "Pasquino" derived from a nearby tailor who was renowned for his wit and intellect; speculation had it that his legacy was carried on through the statue, in "the honor and everlasting remembrance of the poor tailor".

Tradition of wit

Before long, other statues appeared on the scene, forming a kind of public salon

Salon (gathering)

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...

 or academy, the "Congress of the Wits" (Congresso degli Arguti), with Pasquino always the leader, and the sculptures that Romans called Marphurius, Abbot Luigi, Il Facchino, Madama Lucrezia, and Il Babbuino as his outspoken colleagues. The cartelli on which the epigrams were written were quickly passed around, and copies were made, too numerous to suppress. These poems were collected and published annually by the Roman printer Giacomo Mazzocchi

Giacomo Mazzocchi

Giacomo Mazzocchi, in Latin on his titlepages Jacobus Mazochius, was a learned bookseller, printer, and noted antiquarian in papal Rome during the High Renaissance...

 as early as 1509, as Carmina apposita Pasquino, and became well known all over Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. As they became more pointed, the place of publication of Pasquillorum Tomi Duo (1544) was shifted to Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, less squarely under papal control, disguised on the titlepage as Eleutheropolis, "freedom city".

The lampoon

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

ing tradition was ancient among Romans. For a first century versified lampoon, see Domus Aurea

Domus Aurea

The Domus Aurea was a large landscaped portico villa, designed to take advantage of artificially created landscapes built in the heart of Ancient Rome by the Emperor Nero after the Great Fire of Rome had cleared away the aristocratic dwellings on the slopes of the Palatine...

.

Pasquinade is sometimes misidentified, appearing among synonyms of parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

at WordNet

WordNet

WordNet is a lexical database for the English language. It groups English words into sets of synonyms called synsets, provides short, general definitions, and records the various semantic relations between these synonym sets...

. Compare also the equally unrelated pastiche

Pastiche

A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...

.

Cultural legacy

Pasquin is the name of a play by Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....

 from 1736. It was a pasquinade in that it was an explicit and personalized attack on Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....

 and his supporters. It is one of the plays that triggered the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737.

The Pasquinade is a small, grassroots magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 of parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 and satire

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 started in the mid-1990s. The brainchild of Dallas Shelby, a college journalism student with a bent for satire and a love of pop culture. In 2003, the organization developed its own film production company, Pasquinade Films.