A Gift Text of Hispano-Neapolitan Diplomacy: Giovan Battista Manso's Erocallia (1628)

Abstract

SUMMARYThis essay considers a book that Giovan Battista Manso intended as a public gift to Philip IV of Spain. The book is Manso's Erocallia, published in Venice in 1628 with a dedication written by the author and addressed to the Spanish king. While the book ostensibly contains twelve dialogues on love and beauty, these subjects are treated as universal principles encompassing encyclopaedic spectra of knowledge. I wish to argue that the two prefatory letters, alongside the structure or ‘arrangement’ of the book, contribute to its value as a gift text in accordance with Early Modern codes of patronage exchange. The letters included a dedicatory letter from the author to the king, and an additional letter to Manso from the poet Marino. They respectively praise Philip IV's providence and Manso's foundation of the Accademia degli Oziosi, while alluding to Manso's dependence on the king's good government without which the academy would not have been able to prosper. The use of Ramist methods in the arrangement of Erocallia further added to its value as an instantly recognisable demonstration of the encyclopaedic scope of the book's content, and thus a means of showing the king the fruits of his providence in Naples.