GOZZI, GASPARO. - Born in Venice on 4 December 1713, died in Padua on 25 December 1786. A writer of classical limpidity, of a classicism rich in human irony even if often somewhat uniform in its attitudes, he is known above all for the Gazzetta veneta, the Osservatore, Il mondo morale, which are collections of dialogues, monologues, and various moral pieces, with that acute attention to «les moeurs» of a typically eighteenth-century flavour.
His gentle scepticism lies entirely on a literary plane. He deplores the harms of irrational fortune, desires in his heart to «live quietly», but on the other hand feels the demands of the «heart», flees «raison» which knows nothing of virtue, respects the «end of the most holy laws», and, what matters most in the history of Italian spirituality, is in direct polemic against the Pyrrhonism of Pierre Bayle, against Enlightenment abstractness, against «the vanity of wishing to appear a strong spirit».
A well-balanced sense of tradition led him to polemicize against the Lettere virgiliane of Saverio Bettinelli, the latter being the expression of an amused «esprit géométrique» wholly intent on dissecting the Divina Commedia.
Bibliography9 worksA. Zardo, G. G. nella letteratura del suo tempo in Venezia, Bologna 1923; G. Ortolani, Voci e visioni del Settecento veneziano, ivi 1926, p.
BIBL.: A. Zardo, G. G. nella letteratura del suo tempo in Venezia, Bologna 1923; G. Ortolani, Voci e visioni del Settecento veneziano, ivi 1926, p. 205 ff.; A. Cajumi, I cancelli d'oro, Milano 1926, pp. 57-64; F. Pedrina, L'accademia gozziana, ivi 1929; O. Bassi, G. G., ivi 1932; E. Falqui, Il sorriso del G., in Letteratura, 11 (1939), p. 3 ff.; G. De Robertis, Studi, Firenze 1944, pp. 94-100; G. Toffanin, L'Arcadia, Bologna 1947, pp. 139-63; M. Petrocchi, Il tramonto della Repubblica di Venezia e l'assolutismo illuminato, Venezia 1950, ch. 4.
Petrocchi, Massimo. “Gozzi, gasparo.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, coll. 977–978. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/gozzi-gasparo.
MLA
Petrocchi, Massimo. “Gozzi, gasparo.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, coll. 977–978. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/gozzi-gasparo.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec6_gozzi_gasparo,
author = {Petrocchi, Massimo},
title = {Gozzi, gasparo},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VI},
pages = {977--978},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/gozzi-gasparo}
}
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