Il tardo Umanesimo nella Roma di Sisto V (e del Tasso)

The five years of the pontificate of Sixtus V Peretti (24 April 1585 – 27 August 1590) saw a systematic work of Tridentine–inspired re–semanticization of the Classical and Classicistic Tradition, which was expressed in a notable flowering of neo–Latin work, whose major exponents included literary figures such as Silvio Antoniano, Angelo Rocca, Ercole Ciofano, Giulio Roscio da Orte («Hortino») and various members of the Capilupi family, as well as a prominent torchbearer of the Counter–Reformation, the Jesuit priest Antonio Possevino, and the renowned publisher Aldo Manuzio junior.
In this milieu the catholic refounding of knowledge affected the whole horizon of «interdependent semiotic systems» (Jurij Lotman), from the monumental sphere, with the celebration of the pontiff’s various initiatives in art and town planning, to the classical literatures themselves, which were subjected to a complex work of deconstruction, «expurgatio» and rewriting in line with the new spiritual requirements, the preeminent example of this reconversion (indeed, conversion «tout court», in a specifically moralistic–religious sense) being visible in the centos.
Far from being hostile, it actually complemented the equally flourishing literary activity in the vernacular, supremely in the spiritual and celebratory work of Tasso in his Roman phase.