Due lettere sulla peste del 1630

In 1630 a pamphlet with the title Due lettere l’una del Mascardi all’Achillini, l’altra dell’Achillini al Mascardi sopra le presenti calamità was published in Bologna; the two wellknown men of letters exchanged their opinions about the plague devastating Italy in that time and, in particular, on the possibility that the infection could be spread by evil human beings or devilish powers. Information are provided about the cultural background of the correspondence between Mascardi and Achillini, traditionally considered representatives of two opposite and conflicting literary tendencies: the first as an eminent exponent of the classicism of the Barberini’s circle, the other one close to Marino and to the more experimental line of the 17th-century poetry. Two centuries later Manzoni drew materials from this pamphlet for both I Promessi Sposi and La storia della colonna infame; new hypotheses are proposed on a possible interest of Manzoni in Mascardi’s most important work, the treatise Dell’arte istorica (Rome 1636), a
copy of which, with marks of reading, is preserved in the library of Casa Manzoni.