This essay investigates the political dimension of Francesco Fulvio Frugoni's first novel, La vergine parigina (1661), focusing on two episodes: the courtier Almarico/Esperio and the embedded five-act tragedy of Edward II. Drawing on Frugoni's own retrospective accounts in the Eroina intrepida and the Cane di Diogene, the essay argues that the novel's pervasive imagery of disguise and dissimulation constitutes a coherent theory of political conduct grounded in the distinction between legitimate prudential concealment and corrupt simulation. Almarico's shapeshifting, modelled on the Cingar episode in Folengo's Baldus, enacts the ambivalent but redeemable courtier who dissimulates in the service of a higher good; Esperio, a portrait of Antonio Pérez closely indebted to the Relaciones, provides Aurelia with her political education. The English tragedy, staged as a drama with four interludes, shows the catastrophic consequences of ragion di stato divorced from Christian virtue. Throughout, Frugoni aligns the poet's necessary embellishments with the morally sanctioned finzione of the virtuous courtier, setting both against the corrupt performance of those who govern for personal gain.
Il versipelle e la lupa-agnello. Dissimulazioni politiche nella Vergine parigina di Francesco Fulvio Frugoni
Giordano Rodda
2026-01-01
Abstract
This essay investigates the political dimension of Francesco Fulvio Frugoni's first novel, La vergine parigina (1661), focusing on two episodes: the courtier Almarico/Esperio and the embedded five-act tragedy of Edward II. Drawing on Frugoni's own retrospective accounts in the Eroina intrepida and the Cane di Diogene, the essay argues that the novel's pervasive imagery of disguise and dissimulation constitutes a coherent theory of political conduct grounded in the distinction between legitimate prudential concealment and corrupt simulation. Almarico's shapeshifting, modelled on the Cingar episode in Folengo's Baldus, enacts the ambivalent but redeemable courtier who dissimulates in the service of a higher good; Esperio, a portrait of Antonio Pérez closely indebted to the Relaciones, provides Aurelia with her political education. The English tragedy, staged as a drama with four interludes, shows the catastrophic consequences of ragion di stato divorced from Christian virtue. Throughout, Frugoni aligns the poet's necessary embellishments with the morally sanctioned finzione of the virtuous courtier, setting both against the corrupt performance of those who govern for personal gain.
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