Cultura e letteratura nei poemi degli epigoni della "Gerusalemme liberata": Errico, Balli, Nozzolini

Starting from a diachronic excursus on the cultural and especially literary production of Academies acting in Southern Italy between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, this study focuses on the relationship between culture and literature in the poems of epigones of Gerusalemme liberata, in particular in the Mediterranean area. Actually, it has been analysed the genesis of the “heroic poem” between Ariosto and Tasso in the light of recent studies on the subject. However, there’s no doubt that Tasso represents the most important poetic, linguistic and theoretical model of this period: his example leads to a thematic, metric and rhetorical renewal of poetry in the two directions ‘concettista’ and ‘classical’. It is provided the contribution of 3 minor epic poets living in the Mediterranean area during the 17th century: Il Palermo liberato of Tommaso Balli (published in Palermo in 1612 for the types of Giovan Battista Maringo), La Babilonia distrutta of Scipione Errico from Messina (printed for the first time in Messina in 1623 by Giovanni Francesco Bianco), La Sardigna ricuperata of Tolomeo Nozzolini (published in Florence in 1632 by Nesti). The Appendice includes the edition of Errico’s La Babilonia distrutta, carried out on the basis of the princeps of 1623, whose analysis, made largely through a close confrontation with Gerusalemme liberata and Gerusalemme conquistata, allowed to find and to catalogue common data and specific differences between him and the sources.