Figure femminili nelle rime disperse di Parini

This paper describes Parini’s poetical tributes to the female figures (queens, noblewomen, patronesses of the arts, salonnières, nuns and brides) who inhabit the collection he put together in the last years of his life, with the help of Agostino Gambarelli, and never published (ms. Ambrosiano III 4). Set in their historical context, the texts are also read in connection with the philologically significant information that has been unearthed in the Fondo pariniano at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, in the attempt to understand the rationale behind the composition of the anthology and shed light on the causes that led the poet, after Gambarelli’s death (1792), to go back to the manuscript and correct, delete and add up to it, thus changing the original physiognomy of his project.