Ortensio Lando

He is the author of Paradossi, cioè sentenze fuori del comun parere, a series of 20 short essays arguing for an anti-dogmatic (contrarian) propositions using both rudimentary sophistry and some erudition based on classic mythologies, biblical topics, or historical events.

Among the twenty chapters are, for example, propositions asserting that ugliness is better than being beautiful; poverty is better than wealth; ignorance is better than wisdom; being a bastard is preferable to being legitimate; or that it is better if the wife is sterile versus being fertile.

Lando is described by Sotheby and Wilkinson as "filled with singular and curious Paradoxes, but several of them so licentious and blasphemous that even the French translator Charles Estienne, was compelled to omit them in the version he published in 1553".

[1] Jacob Burckhardt in assessing Landi's descriptions of his contemporary Italy[2] states the man: "is so fond of playing hide-and-seek with his own name, and fast-and-loose with historical facts, that even when he seems to be most in earnest, he must be accepted with caution and only after close examination."

All of his books landed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Roman Catholic church, and Paradossi, cioè sentenze fuori del comun parere in particular was widely banned and copies of it were confiscated.