He spares none of the foibles and weaknesses of his contemporaries, and in his denunciations one often meets with passages of eloquent and biting sarcasm.
At times he descends to an almost burlesque mimicry, as witness his sermon on the manner in which the rich ecclesiastic says the Lord's Prayer.
Pierre Bayle and Théophile Raynaud criticize some of Barletta's sermons for coarse language; Dominic Casales defends them in Candor lilii seu Ordo Praedicatorum a calumniis Petri a Valle Clausa [i.e. Theop.
Scholars disagree on whether Barletta was actually the author of the sermons attributed to him (see Tubing, Quartalschrift, 1872, II, 270), although most accept them as authentic.
[1] Leandro Alberti, in his 1550 Descrizzione di tutta Italia, says that an unskilled youth whom he knew gathered together old and unknown sermons and ascribed them to Barletta.