Early Modern Italian Literature

This most recent edition of the bibliography contains almost 21,200 titles in English (64%) and French (36%), with an introductory section on historiography. It deals with every aspect of Italian history and culture from the Late Renaissance to the French Revolution.

This book studies the uses of orality in Italian society, across all classes, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, with an emphasis on the interrelationships between oral communication and the written word. The Introduction provides an overview of the topic as a whole and links the chapters together.
Part I concerns public life in the states of northern, central, and southern Italy. The chapters examine a range of performances that used the spoken word or song: concerted shouts that expressed the feelings of the lower classes and were then recorded in writing; the proclamation of state policy by town criers; songs that gave news of executions; the exercise of power relations in society as recorded in trial records; and diplomatic orations and interactions.
Part II centres on private entertainments. It considers the practices of the performance of poetry sung in social gatherings and on stage with and without improvisation; the extent to which lyric poets anticipated the singing of their verse and collaborated with composers; performances of comedies given as dinner entertainments for the governing body of republican Florence; and a reading of a prose work in a house in Venice, subsequently made famous through a printed account. Part III concerns collective religious practices. Its chapters study sermons in their own right and in relation to written texts, the battle to control spaces for public performance by civic and religious authorities, and singing
texts in sacred spaces.

Contents:
Introduction: Seeing Through Texts; Stephen Harrison,
"Serial Similes in the Battle-Narrative of Virgil’s Aeneid"; Sergios Paschalis, "The Constant Helmsman: Acoetes, Palinurus, and the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus"; Jesús Hernández Lobato, "Fisher of Men: A New Reading of Ausonius’ Catalogue of Fish"; Ioannis Doukas, "The Works of the Sea: Mapping the Itineraries of Imitation in Late Antique Epic"; Martin Stöckinger, "Transgressing Pastoral: Mediated Responses to Aeneid 6 in Calpurnius, Nemesianus, and the Carmina Einsiedlensia"; Justin Stover, "Window Reference in Latin Bucolic: The Case of Martius Valerius"; Michael Paschalis, "The Chain of Imitations in Petrarch’s Africa"; Philip Hardie, "Multiple Allusivity in Girolamo Vida’s De Arte Poetica"; Sheldon Brammall, "Virgo laetissima: The Art of Allusion in Sannazaro’s De partu Virginis"; David McOmish, "Windows on the World: The Literary Revolutions of Adam King’s Genethliacon Iesu Christi"; Marta Celati, "Imitation and Allusion in Machiavelli’s Istorie fiorentine: Between Contemporary Sources and Classical Models"; Luke O’Sullivan, "‘Un traict à la comparaison de ces couples’: Seneca’s Poets and Epicurean Senecanisms in Montaigne’s Essais"; João R. Figueiredo, "Reading through the Sound of Trumpets: Camões’s Political Opinions and the Pattern of Allusion in Os Lusíadas"; William T. Rossiter, "Allusion and Horror: The Afterlives of Polydorus"; Emily Mayne, "‘An huge great stone’: Two Types of Allusion in The Faerie Queene"; Lindsay Ann Reid, "What’s in a Blush? Constellating Aeneid 12.64–9 and Amores 2.5.33–40 in Spenser’s Legend of Chastity"; Editors’ Afterword on Window Reference; Richard F. Thomas, "Window on the Eighties".

Emphasizing the peculiar, the perverse, the clandestine and the scandalous, this volume opens up a critical discourse on sexuality and visual culture in early modern Italy. Contributors consider not just painted (conventional) representations of sexual activities and eroticized bodies, but also images from print media, drawings, sculpted objects and painted ceramic jars. In this way, the volume presents an entirely new picture of Renaissance sexuality, stripping away layers of misconceptions and manipulations to reveal an often-misunderstood world.

'Sex acts' is interpreted broadly, from the acting out, or performing, of one's (or another's) sex to sexual activity, including what might be considered, now or then, peculiar practices and preferences and a variety of possibly scandalous scenarios. While the contributors come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, this collection foregrounds the visual culture of early modern sexuality, from representations of sex and sexualized bodies to material objects associated with sexual activities. The picture presented here nuances our understanding of Renaissance sexuality as well as our own.

In 1600, literate society witnessed the publication of Moderata Fonte's Il merito delle donne. Set in a sun-splashed garden, the text features a female brigata that spars over the merits of men and matrimony under the auspices of an elected queen. The characters are split into camps, the first of which is charged with "dire di [huomini] quanto male può dire liberamente," the other with defending the traditional preeminence of men. The ensuing debate produces a feminist critique of patriarchal structures and contemporary notions of womanhood, signaling a newly radicalized Venetian querelle des femmes. Although Il merito has received much scholarly attention in the last twenty years, its generative ties to Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron have not been studied. This article argues that Fonte reinterpreted the Decameron's frame and Boccaccio's ideation of female license in the Valle delle Donne to construct her vision of an alternative Venice and mode of femininity.

Questo volume propone un discorso critico sulla sessualità e sulla cultura visiva dell’Italia rinascimentale. I saggi raccolti tentano di fare luce su una serie di zone d’ombra, dando spazio a tutte quelle pratiche o preferenze considerate in genere come alternative o anomalie, e a un’ampia varietà di scenari “scandalosi”. Particolare attenzione è stata riservata all’aspetto materiale della cultura sessuale, dalle modalità di rappresentazione erotica del corpo agli oggetti e agli strumenti associati all’attività sessuale. Ne emerge un quadro completamente nuovo della sessualità rinascimentale, che spazza via secoli di manipolazioni ed equivoci socio-culturali, svelando scenari finora trascurati o volutamente nascosti. Diciassette saggi provocatori, con incursioni nel campo dell’arte, della letteratura, della storia, e persino della filosofia, organizzati intorno a quattro assi fondamentali: la pratica, la performance, la perversione e la punizione. Questo volume rivela un panorama molto più complesso e una visione del sesso e della sessualità rinascimentali carica di nuove sfumature.

The essay surveys for the first time, after one earlier attempt by Domenico Rossetti (1774-1842), the entire tradition of the vernacularisation of Francesco Petrarca’s De viris illustribus by Donato Albanzani (born before 1328 - died after 1411). It consists of 48 manuscript witnesses, of which 42 are extant and 6 missing or destroyed, with the addition of two printed editions: the Veronese editio princeps of 1476 and the Venetian edition of 1527. All the witnesses, listed according to the places where they are kept, are accompanied by a concise codicological description and the appropriate bibliographic references. The essay provides further observations on the year in which the vernacularisation was commissioned and executed: traditionally traced back to the early reign of Duke Niccolò III d’Este (1393-1441), some codicological elements could be linked, it appears, to the Padua of the Carraresi family.


Il saggio presenta per la prima volta, dopo l’unico tentativo di Domenico Rossetti (1774-1842), il censimento dell’intera tradizione del volgarizzamento del De viris illustribus di Francesco Petrarca realizzato da Donato Albanzani (n. ante 1328 - m. post 1411), che consta di 48 testimoni manoscritti, di cui 42 esistenti e 6 dispersi o distrutti, cui si aggiungono due stampe: l’editio princeps veronese del 1476 e l’edizione veneziana del 1527. Tutti i testimoni, elencati secondo il luogo di conservazione, sono corredati da una sintetica descrizione codicologica e dagli opportuni rinvii bibliografici; di seguito alcune considerazioni sulla data di realizzazione del volgarizzamento e la sua committenza, tradizionalmente identificate nei primi anni del ducato di Niccolò III d’Este (1393-1441), ma che alcuni elementi codicologici parrebbero ricondurre all’ambiente padovano dei Carraresi.

En los diálogos de la historia, Francesco Patrizi realiza una crítica exhaustiva de los principios, métodos y modelos de una larga tradición de pensadores que, desde la Antigüedad hasta el siglo XVI, concibieron la historia como un género del discurso. Entiende Patrizi, en cambio, que, dada su infinita variedad de formas, usos y fines, la historia no puede reducirse a una narración de acontecimientos pasados, verdaderos y ejemplares, ni entenderse como un arte sermocinal menor, frente a la universalidad de la poesía y de la filosofía. A pesar de la diversidad de manifestaciones, Patrizi consigue definir la historia como la memoria radicada en las cosas pasadas, recientes y futuras, celestes, terrestres y humanas y sostiene que percibir esta memoria permite conocer el funcionamiento cíclico del devenir del mundo, su más íntima y valiosa realidad. Con ello, vindica la condición científica de la historia, aunque admita también su primordial utilidad política, que es perseguir el bienestar perpetuo de los ciudadanos. De acuerdo con una tradición que dominó los modos de entender la disciplina desde el Humanismo, considera que la manera más eficaz de contribuir a la obtención de la felicidad civil es que los historiadores narren hechos que enseñen a lograr la paz y a conservarla largo tiempo. Dedica así el grueso de los diálogos a explicar los métodos que permiten trasladar a los primeros lectores de la historia, los gobernantes, lecciones óptimas de prudencia política y militar. Los diálogos no están exentos del escepticismo con que la crítica, desde antiguo, juzgó la labor del historiador: también Patrizi duda del provecho que, en efecto, pueda procurar la historia, que sólo resultará cierta y útil si los que la escriben son capaces de sobreponerse a la corrupción de la memoria, a los intereses de los poderosos, a los problemas de veracidad de las fuentes y al orgullo de los pueblos.

Il saggio passa in rassegna le occorrenze del campo semantico dell'esilio e di quelli affini (‘profugo’, ‘proscrizione’, ‘confino’) nelle “Confessioni d’un Italiano”, raggruppandole in base alla loro valenza concreta o metaforica e agli eventi a cui fanno riferimento. Si assiste così ad una parabola sofferta e per nulla scontata in cui, partendo da un’occorrenza in cui, nel ricordo del narratore, l’esilio è un luogo in cui si è costretti e non da cui si è esclusi, quella condizione diventa a poco a poco, lontano da ogni eroismo, una necessità doppiamente dolorosa, per le privazioni che comporta, ma anche per la logica identitaria e di rimpianto in cui costringe – nella stessa biografia nieviana – un’attitudine originariamente universalistica e intrinsecamente cosmopolita.

The article presents the Polish edition of the 1556 catechetical instruction addressed to children known as the Spiritual Milk; its Latin version was edited by Pietro Paolo Vergerio. The first part contains bibliographical information about the printing and the characteristics of the Polish text. It also discusses the question of the audience of the translation and the functionality of its typographical solutions. The second part presents a transcription of the text together with a linguistic commentary and a detailed account of the applied transcription rules.

Information about Lattanzio Benucci’s «giureconsulto sanese» life and work: paper’s summary

Within the wide relations network of many Italian Renaissance’s intellectuals and erudites, there are a lot of personality and literary works to revalue and restore to the critics overview. It happens to Lattanzio Benucci (Siena, 1521-Florence, 1598), jurist, poet, comedy and love dialogue’s writer, and also author of the most ancient Alighieri’s Comedy rhyming dictionary nowadays documented. This paper introduce some new knowledge’s acquisitions about Benucci’s biography and takes a census of the manuscripts and printed texts that hands down his works, with the purpose of giving a bio-bibliographical profile as much complete and methodical, useful to enrich the our Renaissance culture’s scenario.

"The Other Voice’s edition of Barbara Torelli’s pastoral drama Partenia (ca. 1586) is a ground-breaking contribution to the study of early modern Italian literature and women’s writing. This is the first ever print edition of the earliest secular play by an Italian woman, acclaimed at the time of its composition – the drama theorist Angelo Ingegneri placed it on par with Tasso’s Aminta and Guarini’s Pastor fido – but long forgotten, to the extent that it was believed lost until the early twentieth century, when the first manuscript of it surfaced in Cremona.

“Partenia is unusual within the spectrum of Italian pastoral drama for its moral austerity and its spiritual overtones; a strange, haunting work, it well exemplifies the new directions Italian literature was taking at this time under the influence of Counter-Reformation religious fervor, and provides a fascinating counterpoint to the better-known pastorals of Isbella Andreini, Maddalena Campiglia, and Mary Wroth. Lisa Sampson and Barbara Burgess-Van Aken’s superb introduction, the fruit of intensive archival research, expertly locates Partenia within the traditions of pastoral drama and late-Renaissance Italian literature as a whole.”
- Virginia Cox
Professor, Department of Italian Studies, New York University"

The essay gives a new contribution to the study of florentine political exile through the publication and the analysis of an unpublished text: the Oratione all fuorusciti di Fiorenza et altri cittadini amatori della libertà. Almost forgotten by historians, the document proves the vitality of the republican spirit. After the truce of Vaucelles and despite the recent defeats in war (Marciano and Siena), it in fact shows that the hope of disengaging from the tyranny of the Medici family was still in the exiles' environment. According to a series of cultural, rhetorical and ideological elements the suggestive hypothesis that the author of the text is Bartolomeo Cavalcanti is brought forward. Bartolomeo Cavalcanti was a famous literary figure and diplomat and one of the main Florentine Diaspora representatives. In those years he was living in Rome on behalf of the Farnese family and would shortly be entering the service of cardinal François de Tourney.

On the occasion of Cola di Rienzo’s ascension to power in Rome at the end of May 1347, Petrarch composed a letter in which he likens the self-styled “liberator of the holy Roman republic” to a new Romulus, a second Camillus, and a third Brutus. In his usual pedagogical mode of teaching by exemplaritas, Petrarch even holds him up to the model of Augustus Caesar, the revered author of the period of peace to which he longed to return. The superlative tone of these historical analogues reflects the fact that Petrarch did indeed have high hopes for the initiative of his quixotic friend. Following the trajectory of Cola’s brief tenure as Roman Tribune, this paper is a study of Petrarch’s attempt to mold after his own image the opportune revolution of Cola di Rienzo in Rome in 1347.

Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, UK.

Margherita Costa (c. 1600–after 1657) was one of the most prolific female authors of seventeenth-century Europe. As a singer and rumoured courtesan, she made her way in the courts and theatres of Rome, Florence, Turin, Paris, Venice, and perhaps even Germany. Costa was a 'virtuosa' performer on both stage and page: between 1630 and 1654, a period marked by a decline in secular women's writing in Italy, she produced fourteen full-length printed works across a remarkable range of genres, topics, and registers. Her unique position on the margins of courtly society allowed Costa to move more freely across the literary stage than any other female writer of her generation, switching easily between high and low style, decorous elegance and erotic allusions, encomiastic speeches and satirical parody. This literary versatility, combined with her talent as a performer, earned her the support of an enviable collection of elite patrons, including the Medici, the Barberini, the French royal house, and the Dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Though this charismatic 'virtuosa' inspired admiration in her contemporaries and left behind an astounding literary legacy, her oeuvre remains understudied. This dissertation is the first study to take a more comprehensive approach to Costa's trajectory as a 'virtuosa' on the literary stage of the Seicento, from her early works in Florence in the 1630s to her last full-length publication in Venice and final printed poems in the 1650s. Rather than only focussing on one period of her literary career, the central aim is to give readers an understanding of Costa's extraordinary adaptability in different cultural and patronage contexts. Her journey opens a window onto the society and culture of a travelling musician and woman writer with a striking ability to succeed in an environment increasingly hostile to female public engagement.

A Venezia, nel 1572, venne pubblicata una "Oratione funebre" per i patrizi veneziani morti durante la Battaglia di Lepanto. Il suo autore, Paolo Paruta (1540-1598), era in quel momento pressoché sconosciuto; tale testo continua a rivelare tratti misteriosi, per almeno due motivi: 1) la sua storia editoriale; 2) il suo status diamesico.
1) Nel 1584 l’opera venne ripubblicata da Altobello Salicato, probabilmente senza il consenso dell’autore.
2) Molto probabilmente l’orazione non venne mai pronunciata (come invece hanno pensato quasi tutti i critici, fino a questo momento): come già ipotizzato da Marazzini nel 1998, una grande molte di prove storiche e retoriche fanno credere che al contrario l’"Oratione Funebre" parutiana un testo intrinsecamente scritto, e non orale. Tale la conclusione di un’approfondita analisi delle fonti storiche riguardanti i festeggiamenti a Venezia in occasione della vittoria di Lepanto (1571).
* * *
In 1572, an "Oratione funebre" for the Venetian noblemen fallen in the Battle of Lepanto (1571) was published in Venice. At that time its author, Paolo Paruta (1540-1598), was an unknown writer, and this text is still problematic, for almost two reasons: 1) its editorial history; 2) its diamesic status.
1) In 1584 a second edition of "Oratione Funebre" was published by Altobello Salicato, probably without Paruta’s consent.
2) Up to now, the most part of scholars believed that the oration was delivered, yet most likely it wasn’t: as assumed by Marazzini 1998, a lot of historical and rhetorical evidences proof that Paruta’s "Oratione Funebre" is just a written text, not an oral one. This is the final result of a thorough examination of the historical sources about the Venetian celebration for the victory of Lepanto (1571).

Torquato Tasso, séjournant en France, rédige une longue lettre où il compare ce pays avec le sien. Analysé jusqu'ici d'un point de vue biographique ou trop généralement psychologique, ce texte est en réalité tissé de références caractéristiques d'une
culture qui n'est pas particulière au Tasse, et où l'image du monde s'appuie essentiellement sur des lieux communs, issus pour beaucoup de la géographie antique. Si les raisonnements de l'auteur sont aristotéliciens, sa perception du royaume est nourrie de Strabon bien plus que d'observations originales. En outre, il s'inspire, dans une visée polémique, d'une topique de l'éloge de la France créée à la fin du Moyen Âge par la propagande royale, largement reçue en Italie, et à laquelle il s'oppose en patriote pour reprocher aux Italiens l'admiration qu'ils vouent à l'étranger.

Un manuscrit ayant appartenu à l'érudit padouan Giovan Vincenzo Pinelli contient une riposte inédite, dont les arguments prouvent à quel point étaient ancrées dans les esprits les images que le poète prétendait dénoncer.

Giovan Battista Manso è stata una figura centrale all’interno del contesto culturale napoletano tra la fine del Cinquecento e la prima metà del Seicento, noto alle cronache letterarie per essere stato amico e protettore dei due maggiori poeti italiani attivi in quegli anni, Torquato Tasso e Giovan Battista Marino, dei quali divenne biografo. La parabola del Manso è qui ripercorsa nella sua estensione e complessità, facendo luce sugli aspetti di maggiore interesse, dalle ampie relazioni intessute con scrittori di varia estrazione (oltre ai già nominati Tasso e Marino, Basile, Pignatelli, Beni, Galilei, Grillo, Loredano, Imperiale, Milton) al fondamentale ruolo svolto, in qualità di principe, nel sodalizio meridionale di primo Seicento più prestigioso e autorevole, l’Accademia degli Oziosi.
Si è inteso poi vagliare capillarmente la sua attività letteraria, focalizzandosi tanto sulle opere più note e celebrate, come la Vita di Torquato Tasso, quanto su quelle in ombra, i dodici dialoghi dell’Erocallia, otto dei quali impreziositi dagli argomenti del Marino, e le Poesie nomiche, silloge che impone una lettura del “canzoniere” in direzione etico-morale, deviando così dalle formule più consuete della lirica post-mariniana.
Collateralmente all’indagine condotta sulla vita e sugli scritti del Manso, nelle tre sezioni di cui si compone il volume si è tracciato un percorso attraverso alcuni aspetti della letteratura napoletana della prima metà del secolo XVII, esaminando, in particolare, le tendenze della poesia lirica, i cui tanti interpreti rispondono a sollecitazioni eterogenee, e la ricezione dell’opera di Tasso (e del suo modello etico e intellettuale) negli ambienti accademici napoletani. In appendice al volume sono pubblicati documenti, soprattutto di carattere epistolare, relativi al Manso e alla sua cerchia di corrispondenti.

The American Association for Italian Studies and The Canadian Society for Italian Studies conference are now accepting session and roundtable proposals for the joint conference that will take place from 20-22 April 2017 at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

Conference website (includes Norms for Organizers/Chairs/Speakers, Proposed Sessions, Lodging Information): http://canadiansocietyforitalianstudies.camp7.org/AAIS-CSIS-Conference-2017

Öz: Osmanlı Rumeli coğrafyasının geniş bir izdüşümü niteliğinde olan vasal devletler, Osmanlı Devleti’ne karşı kimi iktisadi ve askeri sorumluluklara sahiplerdi. Bu askeri yükümlülüklerden şüphesiz ki en önemlisini, Osmanlı seferlerine nefer ile katkı sağlamak teşkil ediyordu. İncelemeye tabi tuttuğumuz, Krakow Jagiellon Kütüphanesi’nde yer alan ve modern araştırmalarda büyük ölçüde ihmal edilmiş mevcut eser, bu olgunun 1663 yılında Köprülü Fazıl Ahmet Paşa’nın Avusturya Habsburgları’na karşı düzenlediği seferdeki yansımasını ele almaktadır. Habsburg hizmetine çalışan Andrea Höltzel isimli zatın Osmanlı ordusuna dair gözlemleri üzerine oluşturmuş olduğu bu el yazması, Eflak ve Boğdan Beylikleri ile Tatar Hanlığı’nın Uyvar’ı kuşatmakta olan Osmanlı ordusuna intikallerini ayrıntılı olarak işlemektedir. Transkripsiyonu ve tercümesi ile birlikte verilecek olan ilgili kısımlar, ayrıca Osmanlı ordusunun genel terkibine dair bilgi edinmemize de yardımcı olmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Osmanlı Ordusu, Habsburglar, Uyvar, Askeri
Tarih, İstihbarat, Kırım Hanlığı, Tatarlar, Eflak-Boğdan.

PARTICIPATION OF OTTOMAN BALKAN VASSAL TROOPS TO THE SIEGE OF NEUHÄUSEL IN ANDREA HÖLTZEL’S RELATIONE (1664)
Abstract: The Ottoman vassal states, which can be regarded as a rather general projection of the Ottoman Rumeli, bore certain economic and military responsibilities vis-a-vis the administration in Istanbul. The most important of these military accountabilities
was doubtlessly the obligation to contribute to Ottoman campaigns with their troops. The manuscript hereby subjected to examination is a relatively neglected report, preserved in the Jagiellon Library in Cracow. It gives a snapshot of this phenomenon as it was
reflected in Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha’s campaign against the Austrian Habsburgs in 1663. The author of the work, a certain Andrea Höltzel - working in service of the Habsburgs - makes a detailed observation of the arrival of Wallachian, Moldavian and
Crimean Tatar troops at the Ottoman camp that was set up to besiege Neuhausel. The related excerpts from the manuscript, which are presented with their transcription and Turkish translation, also provide information related to the composition of the Ottoman army in general.

Keywords: Ottoman army, the Habsburgs, Neuhausel, Military
intelligence, Military history, Crimean Khanate, Tatars, Walachia, Moldavia

This article aims to analyze the role of Bernardino López de Carvajal's (1456 Plasencia-1523 Rome) as a literary patron, namely his contributions to humanism in Rome and to Spanish letters, in the period that has been loosely identified as Spanish Rome. Carvajal held the dignities of orator continuus of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, titular cardinal of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and was even elected antipope with the name of  Martin VI in the conciliabulum of Pisa (1511) against Julius II. A cultivated man and a lover of poets, he belonged to the avant-garde of humanists devoted to create a body of Neolatin and Spanish Literature that would both foster the Spanish presence at Rome and leave a mark in the Spanish literary canon. He sponsored a considerable body of works that celebrated the deeds of the Catholic Kings and those of the Great Captain, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. He also commissioned literary translations, and was involved in the production of theatrical pieces, such as those of Baltasar Torres Naharro.

The paper presents a 17th-century translation of the Satyricon into Italian transmitted in manuscript. The translation is anonymous and presumably was intended for the illegal market of clandestine manuscripts. Material evidence shows that the translation actually circulated across time and among popular readers. The comparison between the Italian translation and 16th – and 17th editions of Petronius has revealed that the translator started his work on the obsolete text of the excerpta brevia (that is, the Satyricon as published before1575) and then shifted to the the excerpta longiora tradition, likely using the Satyricon edition published in 1601 (reprinted in 1608). Such a mixture of source texts proves the translator’s total lack of philological accuracy. In addition, he made several translation errors. However, surprisingly enough, the Italian translation underpins an excellent work of textual criticism on Petronius’ text. The suggested explanation is that the translator or a later reviser emendated the translation following a highly specialised commentary. Some translation errors, in fact, can be explained only as critical indications that have been completely misunderstood. The papers concludes putting in relation the success of the Satyricon among 17th-century popular readers with its reception as a subversive parody of the Greek novel and its traditional values.

Il contributo intende analizzare uno scritto inedito sinora ignorato dagli studiosi: il dialogo del perugino Gregorio Anastagi sul proemio del Canzonie- re, conservato a Trieste nel ms. autografo I 55 della Biblioteca Attilio Hortis. Composto presumibilmente nei primi anni ’80 del Cinquecento, il dialogo dimostra una forte intenzione didascalica, sottoponendo il testo petrarchesco ad una indagine grammaticale minuta e puntuale, strutturata sulla scorta delle Partitiones di Prisciano. Il sonetto proemiale viene usato in questo dialogo in modo del tutto strumentale: ogni sua parola, espressione o verso diviene qui l’occasione per illustrare categorie grammaticali e minime questioni ortografi- che. L’analisi dello scritto di Anastagi dimostra che l’apprendimento grammati- cale da lui proposto non può in alcun modo prescindere dalla lingua autorevo- lissima del modello petrarchesco, anche laddove l’uso del Canzoniere si riduce ad una parcellizzazione estrema, ad un prontuario di soluzioni grammaticali e in secondo luogo stilistiche e metriche.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role that Alfonso Fontanelli played in Gramigna’s book as a “courtly authority” and how Fontanelli’s experience and musical-literary wisdom was portrayed in order to highlight them as beneficial qualities for a secretary.

"Nel 1553 Agustin de Almazan traduce in castigliano il Momus di Leon Battista Alberti. Sullo sfondo del clima culturale Spagnolo, denso di influssi erasmiani e di inquitudini religiose, la mediazione linguistica dell'Almazán perviene, in realtà, a modificare sensibilmente la fisonomia dell'opera, uniformandola ad un vero e proprio trattato 'de principe'- Il suo intervento si risolve in una autentica moralizzazione che, depurando il testo dai toni epicurei e lucianei, gli conferisce un deciso assetto normativo.
In 1553, Agustin de Almazan traslated Leon Battista Alberti's Momus into Spanish. Against the background of the Spanish cultural climate, teeming with Erasmus' influences and religious worries, Almazan's linguistic mediation considerably modifies the aspect of the work, conforming it to a real tratise 'de principe'. His intervention comes to a real moralization that, by cleaning the text from Epicurean and Lucianic tones, bestows on it a decidedly normative structure."

The intellectual societies known as Academies played a vital role in the development of culture, and scholarly debate throughout Italy between 1525-1700. They were fundamental in establishing the intellectual networks later defined as the ‘République des Lettres’, and in the dissemination of ideas in early modern Europe, through print, manuscript, oral debate and performance. This volume surveys the social and cultural role of Academies, challenging received ideas and incorporating recent archival findings on individuals, networks and texts. Ranging over Academies in both major and smaller or peripheral centres, these collected studies explore the interrelationships of Academies with other cultural forums. Individual essays examine the fluid nature of academies and their changing relationships to the political authorities; their role in the promotion of literature, the visual arts and theatre; and the diverse membership recorded for many academies, which included scientists, writers...