MILANO E IL SUO RUOLO CULTURALE NELL'EPISTOLARIO DI FELICE BELLOTTI

The present study aims at investigating the culture of Milan and the dynamics of book production and circulation through the epistolary of Felice Bellotti (1786-1858), preserved in his fund at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. A figure of little importance in contemporary studies, Bellotti was in his time considered the greatest translator of Greek tragedians and he acquired a leading role in the coeval cultural scene, becoming part of a lively network of intellectual relations and exchanges. The breadth and complexity of this network is evidenced by the characteristics of his epistolary. It comprises more than one thousand seven hundred letters, mostly unpublished, covering a period between 1804 and 1857, from more than a hundred senders residing in different Italian cities. This study of the epistolary is divided into two complementary parts. In the first one, the results of the survey conducted on the correspondence are presented, the main new element of which consists in adopting the point of view of the correspondents themselves, who looked with interest at Milan publishing fervor, at the prosperity of the city book market and at the wealth of its cultural institutions. In the second part, an annotated edition is provided of one hundred letters addressed to Bellotti between August 1804 and May 1857, selected for the interest of their contents in relation to the topics explored in the first part and transcribed for the first time according to scientific criteria.