Arena, Anthony D'

, a lawyer and macaronic poet in the sixteenth century, was born at Solliers, in the diocese of Toulon, of a family known from the thirteenth century by the name of La Sable. After studying under Alciatus at Avignon, he began his literary career by writing some wretched books on jurisprudence, and comforted himself for the little demand that was made for them by the fame of his macaronic verses. This species of poetry, which Merlin Coccaio brought into great vogue in Italy, consisted in a confused string of words partly Latin, partly French, partly Provencal, made into a medley of barbarous composition. The principal performance of this kind by our provengal poet is his “Description of the war carried on by Charles V. in Provence,” printed at Avignon, and very scarce of that edition, in 1537; reprinted in 1717 in 8vo, at Paris, under the name of Avignon, and at Lyons, 1760. There are other pieces of macaronic poetry by the same author, “De bragardissima villa de Soleriis, &c.” 1670, in 12mo. He died in 1544, being judge at St. Remi near to Aries. ²