Una Ghost story del XVI secolo: la leggenda sulla morte dell'umanista Carlo Valgulio

The article investigates the origin of the legend about the death of the Brescian humanist Carlo Valgulio: a seventeenth-century biography by Ottavio Rossi states in fact that Valgulio would have died of fright after seeing a ghost. After examining four aspects (the humanists’ interest in the supernatural; the use of ghosts in the religious dispute between Catholics and Protestants; the content and construction of the story; a pamphlet written by Valgulio against the Dominicans of Brescia in defense of a municipal law against funeral expenses), the hypothesis suggested is that the legend was born as an instrument of defamation of the humanist by his opponents after his death.