«Hinc oracula»: libretti e librettisti a Venezia tra Delfici e Incogniti

The Accademia Delfica, founded in Venice between 1635 and 1647, embraced among its members scholars, poets and and exponents of the Venetian society, under the academic motto «Hinc oracula», which identifies an intellectual group that had set itself the mandate to interpret oracles and prophecies through the hermeneutic exercise. The academy had close connections with the renowned Accademia degli Incogniti: Maiolino Bisaccioni dedicated the Cento novelle amorose dei Signori Accademici Incogniti (1651) to this «illustrious and virtuous academy», which was also governed by Antonio Loredan, son of the more famous Giovan Francesco. The presence of Cristoforo Ivanovich since 1657 brought this academy to the attention of Venetian Opera scholars: in his Memorie teatrali di Venezia (1681), in fact, he lists among the members of this group some important seventeenth-century librettists like Busenello, Aureli, Melosio, Cicognini, Faustini, Minato. This seems to give the Accademia Delfica the role of an intellectual cenacle on dramma per musica. However, it’s difficult to ascertain the names of librettists we can call ‘Delfici’, and which themes they were discussing. Starting from several libretti printed in Venice between the 1640s and end of the century, collections of poetry and other books, this article aims at locating evidences of the presence of librettists in the Accademia Delfica and at reconstructing some segments of their intellectual activity.