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Heresy at Play: Academies and the Literary Underground in Counter-Reformation Siena*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Abstract
This article examines an anonymous manuscript from the Sienese academies, likely composed between 1584 and 1593, during the period in which these societies were closed by the Medici grand dukes. The work is a dialogue that depicts a contest between the emblems of the academies of the Intronati, the Accesi, and the Travagliati, all vying for cultural primacy. Purportedly written by a zealous monk who appraises these worldly emblems and mottoes in preposterously flattering, even blasphemous, religious terms, the dialogue is actually a hoax that mocks the proselytizing efforts of Counter-Reformation forces in the city. This article attempts to roughly date this underground work, identify its principal targets, and consider its importance: as a telling depiction of a contest between secular images and sacred symbols, as a parody of feigned orthodoxy, and as a possible expression of freethinking well before the Enlightenment.
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- Copyright © 2010 Renaissance Society of America
Footnotes
A version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of The Renaissance Society of America in 2009 in Los Angeles. For thoughtful criticisms and helpful suggestions I am grateful to the anonymous readers for RQ. I am also indebted to the Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati in Siena for permission to reproduce images. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
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