Medieval Italian man Bartelomeo Colleoni’s final title meant “balls” in Italian and his coat of arms featured testicle-inspired symbols.
Bartelomeo Colleoni was a well-known Italian navy captain within the Fifteenth century. Though “Colleoni” does not instantly translate to “balls” in English, an Italian homophone (soundalike phrase) matching his title — “Coglioni” — appeared in some paperwork and does imply “testicles” in Italian. Furthermore, Colleoni’s coat of arms did, in actual fact, function three pairs of abstractly rendered testicles.
On Feb. 17, 2024, a submit went viral on X (previously Twitter) a few medieval Italian man named Bartolomeo Colleoni, whose final title, translated into English, allegedly means “balls,” and whose coat of arms featured three pairs of testicles. The submit by @WeirdMedieval had, as of this writing, greater than 2 million views.
simply came upon there was a medieval italian man referred to as bartolomeo colleoni which implies “bartholomew balls” and his coat of arms was three pairs of balls and his conflict cry was “coglia! coglia! coglia!” which implies “balls! balls! balls!” pic.twitter.com/4UPwrcuZyI
— bizarre medieval guys BOOK OUT NOW !! (@WeirdMedieval) February 17, 2024
A Reddit submit with the identical picture, allegedly displaying Colleoni’s coat of arms, read:
The defend of Bartolomeo Colleoni, a medieval mercenary commander in North Italy. It symbolize three pairs of testicles vulgarly referred to as coglioni (Colleoni), remodeled over the centuries into overturned hearts.
Briefly, Bartelomeo Colleoni was a navy captain within the Fifteenth century. Though his surname doesn’t translate to “balls,” another spelling — “Coglioni” — was utilized in some documents and does imply “balls” in Italian. Furthermore, Colleoni’s coat of arms did, in actual fact, function an illustration of three pairs of testicles. Due to this fact, we now have rated this declare as “Largely True.”
To begin with, Bartolomeo Colleoni is an genuine historic determine, almost definitely born in 1400, who was one of the vital famend Italian mercenary leaders of the Fifteenth century. Encyclopedia Britannica describes him as an “Italian condottiere, at varied instances in Venetian and Milanese service and from 1454 basic in chief of the Venetian republic for all times, who’s most necessary as a pioneer of subject artillery techniques.”
Though the surname Colleoni doesn’t imply “balls,” one other model of his title that was used to discuss with him in some documents — Coglioni — does truly imply “balls” in Italian. In trendy Italian, “coglioni” is used colloquially in phrases comparable to “rompere i coglioni,” which is a vulgar approach of claiming “to give any individual a tough time.”
Massimo Predonzani, a researcher who focuses on navy heraldry through the Renaissance, defined on his web site that the navy captain is all the time referred to by trendy historians by the surname Colleoni, however in Fifteenth-century paperwork that discuss with him or his household he seems as Coglioni. Furthermore, Predonzani wrote that the phrase “colleoni” derives from the Latin phrase “coleus,” which implies testicle (translation ours):
The scholar Antonio Cornazzano, who lived at Bartolomeo’s court docket in Malpaga and wrote his biography in Latin, calls him Bartholomeus Coleus; that’s, testicle. The identical kind was utilized by Guglielmo Pagello in his funeral oration on the demise of the condottiero.
Lastly, Predonzani wrote that it is true that Colleoni’s coat of arms depicted three pairs of testicles. The Accademia Carrara Bergamo Museum shared {a photograph} on Fb of the Colleoni household coat of arms on the gate of the Cappella Colleoni in Bergamo, Italy, with a caption claiming that “touching it brings good luck.”
(Accademia Carrara Bergamo Fb Web page)
A post shared by Studio Araldico Genealogico Italiano, a company that performs genealogical analysis, stated that, based on some authors, Bartolomeo Colleoni suffered from a situation often called polyorchidism — the presence of an additional testicle. Nevertheless, it underscored that the declare is simply a part of his legend, because the household’s coat of arms was used lengthy earlier than his delivery.
The Bartolomeo Colleoni Monument in Venice is taken into account one of many best-known works of Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio, a instructor of Leonardo da Vinci.
(Getty Photographs)