Due lettere «sopra la cicisbeatura» (e un episodio singolare della fortuna di Giuseppe Baretti tra Italia e Inghilterra)

Two letters published in Italy by the Irish priest Thomas Berry between 1768 and 1770 present an interesting literary reflection on the theme of cicisbeism. The two texts are in fact small epistolary treatises which distinguish between two forms of cicisbeism, ‘larga’ (platonic) and ‘stretta’ (intimate). Berry tackles the question in an original way, interlacing his own thoughts with different outside texts, including an anonymous decalogue regulating male and female relationships, some chapters from St Francis de Sales’ Filotea, a letter discussing the views presented by Costantino Roncaglia in Moderne conversazioni volgarmente dette de’ cicisbei [Modern conversations commonly held on cicisbeism] and the Italian translation of an extract from Giuseppe Baretti’s Account of the Manners and Customs of Italy.