Los Libros di lettere en el siglo XVI. Un genero editorial entre el disenso religioso y la difusion del 'buen vulgar'

Between the 1530s and the end of the century the Italian book market, and the Venetian one especially, was invaded by hundreds of editions of epistolary collections. These books were presented under a variety of headings, but the justification which they had in common was always the same: to popularise (as the publishers and the editors of the collections explain in their prefaces) models for letter-writing in proper Italian vernacular. From 1538, when the collection of Aretino’s Lettere was first published, there was an unceasing flow of “author’s letters” and anthologies of various authors. Through some of these anthologies it is possible to reconstruct a circuit of relationships and personal relations based on common intellectual and sometime also religious experiences. Some of these anthologies, starting from the highly successful Lettere volgari di diversi nobilissimi huomini (Venice: Manuzio, 1542), contained letters which reflected heterodox doctrines.