Poggio Bracciolini's Facetiae / Confabulationes
About the work
Imported from the workbook's Full reassessment sheet, revised 7 October 2026 (record ID 69). The assessment below is the workbook's comparative judgment under its stated criteria; source links and limits are retained.
Workbook assessment: Spread only
Date or witness: Versions circulating from c.1438; familiar collection 1452–1453; printed from c.1470
Region: Italy; subsequently wider Europe
Workbook date-sort bounds: 1438 CE to 1471 CE; these bounds are not automatically invention or disappearance dates.
Description
A collection of 273 jokes and anecdotes, including obscene stories and witty replies. More than fifty manuscripts, translations and jokes reused in other collections document circulation.
Evidence of adoption or transmission
Poggio’s jokes circulate in many manuscript and print collections and later translations.
What remains uncertain
The collection is closely tied to humanist and papal-curial culture. Oral-sounding anecdotes and wider reproduction do not by themselves establish grassroots working-class uptake of any specific joke.
Workbook revision note: Reassessed using grassroots criteria