Il fantasma di un libertino: L’Anima di Ferrante Pallavicino nella cultura del Seicento

This article examines a writing of the Venetian area of ​​the first half of the seventeenth century entitled L’Anima by Ferrante Pallavicino. It is an anonymous pamphlet made by the Accademia degli Incogniti in which the protagonist Ferrante Pallavicino, a libertine writer beheaded in 1642 due to his polemical interventions against Urban VIII. Pallavicino is presented as a martyr who paid with his life his views against the “tyranny of the Barberini”. Pallavicino had sided against the pope on the occasion of the Castro war. Among the various reasons of interest in this writing we note the revival of typical themes of Paolo Sarpi: anti-Jesuitism, the controversy against Rome, the superiority of the council over the pope, the criticism of the customs and external religiosity of the Italians. In the article, various themes are examined that put this writing in communication with the libertine tradition, furthermore some possible sources of the libellus are identified, in particular “The Benefit of Christ”.