LO SCIPIO DI PADRE STEFANO DESIDERI E L'ATTIVITÀ TEATRALE DEI GESUITI

This edition of Father Stefano Desideri’s praetexta entitled Scipio is the first with comments and a translation in Italian. It belongs to the tradition of Jesuit drama in Latin verse promoted in the aftermath of the Reformation not only as a pedagogical instrument for the future ruling classes, but also as an ideological weapon against those who would abandon the Catholic Church’s doctrine. These dramas were usually performed by members of the colleges run by the Society of Jesus and recalled at a formal level, the corpus of the Tragoediae written by Seneca the Younger. The argumenta dramatis, on the other hand, were usually taken either from the numerous subjects of hagiography or from the pagan world as in the case of Scipio where the main character is the vanquisher of Hannibal. Obviously, in cases like that of Scipio, the hero is first immersed in the holy waters of the baptismal font, from which he emerges with all the holy virtues characteristic of a Christian martyr. The result is that the plot is almost predictable. In fact, it is set in the events immediately preceding the landing of Roman troops on African soil and built upon the hero/antihero dialectic. These two roles are assigned to Scipio Africanus-Major and Pleminius, the Roman commander’s lieutenant and a marginal character in the narration by Livy.

About Giuseppe Flammini
Giuseppe Flammini is an associate professor at the Department of Humanities at the University of Macerata. He obtained a National Scientific Certification as professor of Classical and Late Antiquity Philology. With EUM he has published: Gli ‘Anecdota Graeca’ di Ludovico Antonio Muratori e l'indagine filologica all’alba del secolo XVIII (2006).