«Si conservi il decoro in tutte le cose». Giovanni Andrea Gilio tra ideali classicisti e disciplinamento confessionale

The article investigates the Topica poetica of Giovanni Andrea Gilio published in 1580 with the objective of demonstrating the relationship between the construction of the text and artistic expression. This essay examines the strategies supporting the entire structure of a work in which texts by more or less contemporary authors (Girolamo Ruscelli, Lodovico Dolce, Orazio Toscanella) undergo an labour of revision. This analysis focuses particularly the presence of Aristotele (Poetica) able to influence the positions of rhetorical and literary Gilio. Rhetorical constructions indicated by the author are related to the concept of “decorum” already dealt in the Dialogo degli errori e degli abusi de’ pittori and especially in treaty Emulazione, che il Demonio ha fatto a Dio published in 1550: Gilio here addresses the problem of bending the expressive means of the arts to the truth of the Catholic faith useful to the moral and religious faithful uncultured. In conclusion, in the writings analyzed the code and the figurative code literary adhere to the same matrix: the center of the theoretical reflection of Gilio identify pedagogical needs in respect of the rhetoric of persuasion.