Eros e Priapo


Eros e Priapo: da furore a cenere is a satiric pamphlet by the Italian author Carlo Emilio Gadda, written in 1945 and first published in a censored version in 1967.

Uncensored edition

An excerpt comparison. The 1967 censored version is shown on the left, the 1945 original uncensored version on the right.


Style and sources

The work framework is an archaic-style prose drawn from the Florentine dialect of Machiavelli, interpolated with the modern vernacular of the Tuscan language, and in a few cases, of modern Lombard language and Romanesco dialect. Gadda said that this parallels what Machiavelli himself did with Tacitus, whose structure he interpolated with jargon from his time. Another source of archaic Florentine expressions is Benvenuto Cellini.
For the satiric attack, the main influences are the Book of Revelation, for its caricatures against Cesar and Rome, and D'Annunzio's Maia - Laus vitae.

Related works

Some of Gadda's fables present related scatological elements. They are the 111th, 129th, 132nd, 134th, 137th, 138th, 147th and 184th fables of the antifascist cycle.