Letteratura e diritto. Spunti sull’oratoria forense in Italia tra Cinque e Settecento

Abstract

In the history of the relationship between law and literature the forensic eloquence is a relatively new subject, at least in Italian Studies. This article investigates the tradition of defence speeches between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in Venice (Pietro Badoaro, the playwright Goldoni, who was for many years a professional lawyer), in Naples (where G.B. Vico taught forensic rhetoric at the University), and in Bologna (the cause célèbre of the supposed wife-killer Francesco Albergati Capacelli, defended by Ignazio Magnani). Lawyers often became very popular, they used both dialect and Italian, mixing the scholars and the courts, logic and sentimentalism, and paving the way for the new eloquence of the Revolution era.