Tanto utile, e tanto contrastato : strategie discorsive di Giuseppe Parini gazzettiere a sostegno dell’innesto del vaiolo

The essay focuses on a corpus of journalistic articles published in the « Gazzetta di Milano » during 1769, the year the gazette was edited by Giuseppe Parini. The articles under investigation focus on the practice of smallpox inoculation, at the time also much discussed outside Italy. After a historical overview of the disease and the debate on its possible cure, to which Parini had already contributed in his ode L’innesto del vaiuolo, this essay shows how the editor of the « Gazzetta di Milano » dealt with the subject repeatedly and with disparate approaches, although preferably oriented towards a detailed account of the facts. Finally, the essay makes some in-depth examination of the lexicon, which – set in a linear syntax, achieved also thanks to the judicious use of punctuation – is inclined to a certain technical-scientific precision, however contained due to both the medium of the gazette and, correlatively, the textual typologies employed.