On this month's Morbidly Fascinating Page:

The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel

IN THE MORBID PAGE ARCHIVES:

Caffa Bubonic Plague Catapults
Japanese UFOs
The Ghosts of Eastern State Penitentiary

See a YouTube video that explains the meaning of the images HERE

In 1565, twelve years after the death of François Rabelais (1494-1553) — the French Renaissance author best known for his satirical masterpiece The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel (the bawdy tale of two giants, Gargantua and his son Pantagruel) — the Parisian bookseller and publisher Richard Breton brought out Les songes drolatiques de Pantagruel (The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel). The slim volume, save a short preface from Breton, is made up entirely of images and no text — 120 woodcuts depicting a series of fantastically bizarre and grotesque figures, reminiscent of some of the more inventive and twisted creations of artists such as Brueghel or Bosch. The woodcut drawings are meant to illustrate the dreams of the young Pantagruel.

The images are grotesque and clearly meant to adhere to the time when the emergence of satire, of masked carnival and other seedy and disturbed behaviors were imagined and actuated in the growing European populations of the 16th Century. They are a mixture of people and animals, of imps and demons, with obvious sexual overtones. There is a suggestion of disease and sorcery as well.

Many scholars feel that the woodcut drawings are satire; making fun of the clergy and royalty. They are similar in intent to the political memes of today. A later publication of this book was retitled The Comical Dreams of Pantagruel.