Parnaso bipartito nella satira italiana del '600 (e due imitazioni spagnole)

The first part of this report draws a short excursus of the Italian alegoric parnassic literature, since its origins, in 1300, with the literary genres of the “imaginary journey” 134 and the “visions”, until its most successful expression, in 1600, with Traiano Boccalini’s Ragguagli di Parnaso. Filippo Oriolo da Bassano, who firstly set the “journey” in the Parnassus Mountain, was one of the most important authors for the evolution of this literature; Cesare Caporali was the second one and much more important, because, for the first time, he introduced a relevant teminological distinction between the “journey” and the “Avvisi” which, despite still written in verses, were a literary imitation of the daily chronicles “gazzette” Traiano Boccalini finally made the great innovation by using the prose style of the “gazzette”, which conferred the parnassic literature its big success, until being imitated all over Italy and Erope. The second part of the report analyzes two Spanish imitations of Italian parnassic literature: Miguel de Cervante’s Viaje del Parnaso and an anonimous Aviso de Parnaso, attributed to Francisco de Quevedo. The importance of the first work is due to its being in an intermediate position between Caporali and Boccalini, by distinguishing, as the first one did, between “journey” and “Avvisi”, but using the prose for the latter, bringing forward Boccalini himself. The second work is a real imitation of the Ragguagli, but with a completely different purpose: criticizing Venice and its political choices and praising the Spanish Monarchy. Hence, the literary instrument invented by Boccalini became a political weapon usable both by Venetians and Spanish writers