At the age of sixteen he entered the monastery of Sant'Eufemia near Brescia, and eighteen months afterwards he became a professed member of the Benedictine order.

For a few years his life as a monk seems to have been tolerably regular, and he is said to have produced a considerable quantity of Latin verse, written, not unsuccessfully, in the Virgilian style.

[1] His first work, under the Latin pseudonym Merlinus Cocaius, was the macaronic narrative poem Baldo (1517), which relates the adventures of a fictitious hero named Baldo ("Baldus"), a descendant of French royalty and something of a juvenile delinquent who encounters imprisonment; battles with local authorities, pirates, shepherds, witches, and demons; and a journey to the underworld.

[citation needed] Though frequently censured, it soon attained a wide popularity, and within a very few years passed through several editions and was later expanded by Folengo.

[1] We next find him about the year 1533 writing in rhymed octaves a life of Christ entitled L'Umanità del Figliuolo di Dio; and he is known to have composed, still later, another religious poem upon the creation, fall and restoration of man, besides a few tragedies.