«Nel laberinto delle idee confuse». La riforma letteraria di Gianvincenzo Gravina

The aim of this study has been to carry out a reconnaissance of the literary-aesthetic reflection brought about by Gravina, from his Roman beginnings, faced starting from De lingua etrusca (1690) and Hydra mystica (1691), to the development of the real proposal of the literary renewal which the famous essay Della ragion poetica is an expression of. The analysis of his works, in Italian (Discorso sopra l’Endimione, Delle antiche favole, Egloghe, Della ragion poetica) and in Latin (De lingua etrusca, Hydra mystica, De lingua latina), in which this reflection is expressed, has aimed at reconstructing the context where they were born, in order to identify the interlocutors and place them within the debate which involved the main Italian and European intellectuals for almost two decades. The intention of this work has been to reconstruct the role of Gravina in the spreading of Francis Bacon’s thought in Italy, trying to interpret some of his aesthetic ideas within the Orsi-Bouhours debate.