Le Tre Arcadie

Abstract

The article analyzes the evolution of eighteenth-century aesthetics through the examination of three pastoral works collected in the 1746 Venetian anthology Le tre Arcadie ovvero Accademie pastorali: Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia, Benedetto Menzini's Accademia Tusculana, and Michele Giuseppe Morei's Autunno tiburtino.

The analysis of these three works demonstrates how Sannazaro's Arcadia as a literary model proved to be a flexible and enduring instrument for reflection on the aesthetic and political questions of the Eighteenth century at the heart of the Accademia. The "pastoral veil" offers authors the possibility of treating "the loftiest subjects" under apparently humble forms, confirming the universal validity of this literary paradigm in the eighteenth-century "Republic of Letters."

This venetian anthology (1746) thus bears witness to the vitality of the pastoral prosimetric tradition and its capacity to adapt to the different evolutionary phases of taste and cultural demands of the nascent Enlightenment.