Alidoro, tragedia in cinque atti di Gabriele Bombasi

The topic of this research is the unpublished manuscript of Alidoro, tragedy in five acts composed of hendecasyllables, represented in Reggio Emilia, November 2, 1568. Its author Gabriele Bombasi (1531 - 1602) was a poet and writer in Italian and Latin language, connoisseur of music and arts, dignitary of the Farnese court in Parma and Rome. He was certainly a prominent member of the refined cultural eclecticism in the princely courts of Emilia and in the literary academies after the Council of Trent. Some archival documents and rare books, discovered and examined here, show that Alidoro was a sixteenth century famous tragedy, though now almost forgotten. The rescue from oblivion of this tragedy and its author so obviously closes this gap and contributes to comprehensive reconstruction going on for years of literary history and in particular the tragic gendre in Italy. Therefore, the thesis contains a critical edition of the manuscript tragedy, a paper codex from the sixteenth century, and provides a reconstructed text accompanied by a critical apparatus, a structured discussion about the genesis and the history of the play, the ancient and modern models, the aesthetic ideas of poetry and the influence of Aristotle. It further tries to explain the plot with other arts, meaning informations and notes, like this illustrating the text and placing it accurately in the culture of the late Renaissance.