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La «Difesa della lingua fiorentina e di Dante, con le regole da far bella e numerosa la prosa» di Carlo Lenzoni

2012; Loescher; Volume: 189; Issue: 625 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1484/j.gsli.5.129181

0017-0496

Valentina Martino,

Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the importance of Lenzoni’s Difesa. Since there exists no edition after the editio princeps and specific studies are lacking, the work is presented in its separate parts: the “Ragionamento primo de la lingua fiorentina, e del modo e uso di quella”, the “Ragionamento secondo a difesa universale e particulare del divinissimo nostro poeta, Dante Alighieri” and the “Ragionamento III de’ numeri e de’ piedi toscani, con le regole da far bella e sonora la prosa”. This critical study underlines how the Difesa is the most comprehensive 16th century treatise concerned with the formal analysis of vernacular texts and how Lenzoni uses solid arguments to demonstrate Dante’s extraordinary mastery of language, metre and rhetoric, a position in striking contrast to that held by Bembo and many other literary scholars.