Daniello Bartoli - Baroque Rome

Baroque Rome

Bartoli's celebrated first work, L'huomo di lettere (1645), a literary vademecum for its time, became a Baroque best seller in Italian and in numerous translations, over thirty editions appearing during his lifetime. As a Jesuit historian Bartoli represents the shift from the preceding Latin humanist historiography of Niccolò Orlandini and Francesco Sacchini to the illustrious Jesuit prose tradition he established in Italian when he undertook the official history of the first century of the Society of Jesus (1540). His monumental Istoria della Compagnia di Gesu (Rome, 1650–1673), in 6 folio vols. is the longest Italian classic. It begins with an authoritative if somewhat ponderous biography of the founder Ignatius Loyola. Particularly fascinating and exotic are his histories of Francis Xavier and the Jesuit missions in the East which describe India and the opening of the East L'Asia (1653). A shorter work on Akbar the Great and Rodolfo Acquaviva came out in 1653 and was added to the third edition of L'Asia in 1667. Part II of the first corner of the world he completed was Japan, Il Giappone (1660), and the Part III on China, La Cina appeared in (1663). To these he added volumes on the Society in England, L'Inghilterra (1667) and Italy, L'Italia (1673). With these histories he alternated treatises on language use, Del torto e del diritto del non si puo and moral works of like La Ricreazione del savio. In the 1670s the Lyons Jesuit Louis Janin, translator of L'huomo di lettere issued Latin translations of these histories. From 1670 to 1673 Bartoli served as Rector of the Collegio Romano in recognition of his international prestige as a writer. Indefatigible in his final years Bartoli produced 4 Jesuit biographies and three scientific treatises on pressure, sound, coagulation. His several works of spiritual reflection were brought together a folio edition, Le Morali in 1684. His final work, Pensieri sacri went to press after his death in Rome, January 13, 1685.

During the age of Leopardi and Manzoni, Bartoli became the literary paragon of Restoration Italy as a master of prose style. Outstanding among the numerous printings and anthologies of his works from that period is the standard octavo edition of his complete works beautifully printed by Giacinto Marietti, Turin, 1825-1842 in 34 volumes.