This paper aims to underline the prominent function of Latin comedy in Ruzante’s ‘theatrical adventure’, focusing on the works that precede Piovana and Vaccaria. These two comedies, which respectively ‘translate’ Plautus’ Rudens and Asinaria, have been commonly considered as the result of a late approach to the ancient theatre, which leads Ruzante’s creativityto a significant involution. Widening the analysis to his whole production and examining the presence of a specific intertext (Plautus’ Amphitruo), the paper investigates how Ruzante, throughout his theatrical production, elaborates in an increasingly complex way the Plautine scenes dedicated to ‘the theft of identity’, using Plautus as a constant model, which strongly influences his dramaturgical elaboration.
If, since the Renaissance, the Ars poetica has known a widespread diffusion, as demonstrated by the huge number of its interpreters who supported different positions and views, it is however especially in the later Cinquecento, in the context of the Tridentine cultural reorganisation, that the reception of Ars poetica is inextricably linked to the topical issues of the period, as the redefinition of poetry and its role in society. During the Counter-reformation, especially among the scholars educated at the Studio Padovano, the tendency to trace back Horace’s work to Aristotle’s Poetics arose, in order to establish the authority of both of these masterpieces; this trend finds the most explicit theorisation in a commentary published in 1604 by Ercole Manzoni, a relatively unknown priest from Bergamo. This article aims at illustrating the ways used to assert and discuss the Aristotelian influence in the Ars poetica, showing the links between this topic and other aspects of the exegesis on Horace’s works.
This essay aims to provide an overview of the life and works of Ercole Cimilotti, a sixteenth-century Italian physician, poet and scholar. He was a member of the Accademia degli Inquieti of Milan, an institution established in 1594 in the capital of the Duchy. He left an autograph manuscript, which includes nineteen out of the many lectures he discussed among the Inquieti. This manuscript represents a precious source for delving into the history of this largely overlooked Italian Academy and it will be examined throughout this paper. The latter part of this essay includes a synthetic exposition of the fourth Cimilotti’s lecture, which deals with the mental illness of Torquato Tasso. This writing was first discovered and partially published by Pietro Mazzucchelli in the early nineteenth century, and it was acknowledged by Vincenzo Monti.
Between the nineteenth and the twentieth century the interpretation of the Renaissance drastically changed in Europe, preparing the path for the forthcoming Renaissancekult, as Walther Rehm called it. At the same time, in Italy the Renaissance as a historiographic and aesthetic category continues to give rise to polemics and controversies. A major exception is Gabriele d’Annunzio, who at the contrary contributed greatly to a more a positive attitude toward the Renaissance. This article aims to provide an assessment of this research topic, setting some guidelines to further investigation. The focus will be, in particular, on d’Annunzio’s sophisticated knowledge of the Renaissance, the influence of the Renaissance in shaping his model of a superuomo and the possible role played by the humanistic theory and practice of the imitatio in his literary workshop.
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