The homage paid to Petrarch's stuffed cat at Arqua supplied him with a truly Aristophanic gibe.[203] Society comes next beneath his ferule.

There is not a city of Italy which Tassoni did not wring in the withers of its self-conceit.
The dialects of Ferrara, Bologna, Bergamo, Florence, Rome, lend the satirist vulgar phrases when he quits the grand style and, taking Virgil's golden trumpet from his lips, slides off into a _canaille_ drawl or sluice of Billingsgate.

Modena is burlesqued in her presiding Potta, gibbeted for her filthy streets.

The Sienese discover that the world accounts them lunatics.

The Florentines and Perugians are branded for notorious vice.