Pierre Jean Grosley, New Observations on Italy and Its Inhabitants

Grosley observes that there is a historical tradition of improvisatori in Italy, and notes that it is the versatility of the language–rather than an abundance of talent–that creates so many improvisatori. Grosley describes improvisatori as “frivolous” and hopes that good taste will restrain them.

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Author:
Grosley, Pierre Jean
Date Written:
 
Language:
English
Publication Title:
New Observations on Italy and Its Inhabitants
Article Title:
 
Page Numbers:
2:173
Additional Info:
2 vols. Trans. Thomas Nugent
Publisher:
 
Place of Publication:
London
Date Published:
1769

Text:

Italy always had, and Rome still has, improvisatori; that is, poets, who, like Alexander's Cherilus, compose and repeat two or three hundred extempore verses on any subject; a talent, which however is not so much to the praise of those who pride themselves in it, as of the language which is so copious and versatile as to answer all the varieties of such a knack, which Cicero has termed audax negotium & impudens. There is reason to hope, that the present prevalence of a just taste, and a spirit of consistence in the republic of letters, will at length proscribe the frivolousness of these improvisatori, which too much abounds in most literary dissertations of Italian growth; and that these dissertations will keep to what they promise to treat of, and for the future not so easily admit common-place, parade of science, and things trite and vulgar.

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