Definition of "cento"

But, Sr, I will no longer tire your patience wth these monsters (the subject of every contemptuous pamphlet) then with the madness of the Anabaptists, Quakers, Fift Monarchy-men, and a cento of unheard of heresies besides, which, at present, deform the once renowned Church of England, and approach so little to the pretended Reformation, which we in France have been made to believe, that there is nothing more heavenly wide.

1659, John Evelyn, “A Character of England, as It was Lately Presented in a Letter to a Nobleman of France. […] The Third Edition.”, in William Upcott, compiler, The Miscellaneous Writings of John Evelyn, […], London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1825, page 156

Now look out in the GRADUS for Purus, and you find as the first synonime, lacteus, for coloratus, and the first synonime is purpureus. I mention this by way of elucidating one of the most ordinary processes in the ferrumination of these Centos.

1817, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, Biographia Literaria; or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Rest Fenner […]

And Captain McCabe says: "I have always regarded the letter as a sort of 'cento' of odds and ends (badly put together) from Lee's genuine letters."

1915 September, Charles A. Graves, “The Forged Letter of General Lee”, in Southern Historical Society Papers, New Series, number 40, page 124

Paradise Lost, as Teskey observes, is a cento, a vast echo chamber of classical texts, all twisted into new shapes.

2007, William Poole, “Out of his Furrow”, in London Review of Books, volume 29, number 3, page 16