Encomio, idolatria e purgazione nel «Cataneo overo de gli idoli» e nel progetto editoriale delle «Rime» di Torquato Tasso

The article aims to offer an interpretation of the thematic tripartition of Torquato Tasso’s Rime, according to the order envisioned by the author at the beginning of the 1590s. Following the arguments on lyrical praise expounded in the dialogue Il Cataneo overo de gli idoli (1585) and in other theoretical considerations of those years, the paper attempts to trace in epideictic rhetoric the criterion for ordering the three books of Tasso’s lyrical corpus. The macro-structural division into amorous rhymes, praises of illustrious women and men, and finally praise of “sacred things” seems to follow an ascending path towards the sacred, aimed at glorifying the poet’s genius in a crescendo parallel to the value of the lyrical subject and at purging the language of all simulacra generated by poetic mimesis.