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The Gelati Academy, the Gessi Family and Edgar Allan Poe

Andrea Gardi    Università degli Studi di Udine, Italia    

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abstract

The article tries to exemplify the possible work of research and contextualization one can make on an isolated and not immediately understandable source: in this specific case, an encrypted ownership mark put on a sixteenth-century printed book. Starting with mark deciphering, the work reconstructs the writers’ biographic deeds, their social position and the cultural milieu in which they acted, trying to look both at the little-known mentality of a family from little Bolognese nobility between sixteenth and seventeenth century, and at the possible social spread (in a period thought to be characterised by conformism and mind control) of cultural elements bound to hermeticism, neoplatonism, qabalah, alchemy, magic, heterodoxy; a spread which was promoted by some academies and religious orders.

Published
Dec. 11, 2020
Accepted
July 29, 2020
Submitted
July 9, 2020
Language
IT

Keywords: Ownership marksCryptographyNeoplatonismBologna, gentry (XVI-XVII cent)Bologna, accademia dei Gelati

Copyright: © 2020 Andrea Gardi. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.