La peste nella letteratura milanese del Cinque e Seicento

The essay offers an overview of the literary texts dedicated to the plague published in Milan on the occasion of the two historic infections, that of the 1570s and that of 1630. Linked by the protagonism of the two Borromeo archbishops, San Carlo and Manzoni’s Federico, the two events inspired a real topos in the Lombard tradition. In particular, the attention is focused on the intervention of the poet Giuliano Goselini, author of a song on the contagion which stands out for its independence from the Carolinian model, and, for the Federico’s plague, on the drama of the friar Benedetto Cinquanta, an example of ‘spiritual tragedy’ worthy of attention.