La «ridicolosa corteccia». Motti e comicità nella novella rinascimentale (Tomaso Costo, Matteo Bandello e Girolamo Parabosco)

The « ridicola corteccia ». Mots and comedy in the Renaissance novella (Tomaso Costo, Matteo Bandello, and Girolamo Parabosco) · The essay sets out to investigate the presence and value of the motto di spirito in 16th-century novellistics, through three exemplary cases consisting of the collections of Matteo Bandello, Girolamo Parabosco and Tomaso Costo. Retracing, albeit by probing, the parabola of 16th-century novellistics, two clear tendencies can be discerned : deconstruction on the one hand and moralisation on the other. The motto, from being a narrative strategy proper to the comic, according to the Decameronian model, passes into a mechanism of laughter, collateral or external to the tale. It also acquires, in an increasingly pronounced manner (even if often only as a façade), an educational and moralising imprint, in line with the spirit of the times.