Vittorio Alfieri and the ‘anti-panegyric’. Comparative study with Plinian oration

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the relation between Vittorio Alfieri's Panegirico di Plinio a Trajano, written by the author in Pisa in 1785, and its Latin model, the speech read by Plinio il Giovane to Traiano in the Senate in the year 100 AD. The study of Alfieri's work has proven interesting from several points of view, primarily because of the author's overturning of the oratorio genre: the work, in fact, has been called by scholars an «antipanegirico», a «panegirico capovolto». Alfieri replaces the original glorification of the optimus princeps with a political proposal, dispensing with the encomiastic aspect that characterizes Plinio’s panegyric in order to emphasize his authorial voice. Indeed, the praises of Traiano in the text are reduced and relegated to a marginal role, while Plinio-Alfieri’s speech assumes an exhortatory and moral function.