La «Prosopopea di Pericle» in Arcadia e oltre

This essay is based on a cross–reading of Monti’s Letters and of the «Atti Arcadici», which demonstrates that the month of August 1779 was entirely dedicated to the celebrations of the Pontiff, Pio VI Braschi, for whom the Academy summoned three «Adunanze Generali»: the first «Ordinaria» (on the 12th), the others «Straordinarie» (on the 19th and 22nd). On the second occasion, the author publicly read the first version of his «Prosopopoeia of Pericles», printed in the same year; the setting of the reading strikes as one of extreme magnificence, both stately and “ritualized”, that conjugates the «sublime», in an encomiastic sense, with the «mundane framing» (Gennaro Barbarisi) of the celebration. Monti made changes to his Ode no less than six times on a time span of forty-seven years (1779-1826): the philological and critical analysis of the variants is one of the focuses of the essay. To understand the sense and the nature of the «Prosopopoeia of Pericles» it is also important to remember its connection with the head of Pericles found in Cassio’s villa at Tivoli, on the site of one of the excavations promoted by Pio VI’s cultural politics; due to the intervention of Ennio Quirino Visconti, the head was later placed in the Hall of the Muses of the Museum Pio–Clementino: the Ode found its place next to it in 1784. Another focus of this essay is the investigation of classical and neo–classical macro– and micro–sources of the «Prosopopoeia», together with the analysis of the cultural and literary context that underlies Monti’s continuous reworking of it: a process that projects the «Prosopopoeia» beyond its original academic context, the one of the second Arcadia. The «Prosopopoeia» acquires in the end a deeper significance that explains both Monti’s unwavering fascination for it, and its success among the critics, first of all Carducci, that saw in the Ode the junction between the first two «series» of Monti’s poetic activity. In this Ode, in fact, the memory and the permanence of antiquity are celebrated in a number of keys: from archeology to encomium, from arcadic “cantabile” style to neo–classical ferment, from neo–humanistic inspiration to “sublime” enthusiasm.