Note per un bilancio degli studi sul ‘Saggiatore’ (con una ‘Trutina’ milanese di primo Seicento)

In the 1960s, a renewal around Galileo's work began in Italian studies. It can be defined around two points: a more authentic consideration of the rhetorical resources of scientific prose and a more accu-rate reconstruction of the historical context in which the new experimental science operated. For both, the important role played by Ezio Raimondi and the Bolognese school, which had Andrea Battistini as one of its leading experts, should be mentioned. After retracing this season of revival, the essay, in its second part, proceeds from the general to the particular by giving the example of a text that is exempla-ry of the context of the reception of Galileo's Saggiatore. It is a pamphlet entitled Trutina, a small trea-tise on rhetoric composed by Federico Borromeo, the cardinal archbishop of Milan, Galileo's correspondent, close to the Accademia dei Lincei and an attentive connoisseur of new astronomical discoveries.