Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (Rome 1791–1863) produced the largest body of satirical poetry in Italian: 2,279 pungent sonnets in romanesco devoted to the lives and behaviour of the common people of the Rome of his time. His range of topics is simply too long to list but embraces: eating, drinking, violence, sex, earthquake, ghosts, gambling, house-hunting, religion, orphans, popes, shyster lawyers, bedrooms, fireworks. His irregular, sometimes scurrilous, subject matter is shaped by a peerless mastery of the Petrachan sonnet.