Storia e forme della poesia italiana nel trattato in endecasillabi sciolti di Girolamo Muzio ('Dell’arte poetica', 1551)

The aim of the paper is to analyse the history and the development of poetical structures in Girolamo Muzio’s Dell’arte poetica (1551). In this work the author tackles the study of italian versification in a chronological perspective, starting from the xiii-xivth centuries canon, up to modern ‘metrica barbara’. In his treatise, Muzio proves to reconstruct the history of italian poetry, in the years of mature Bembian Petrarchism, considering, at first, the most important latin and vulgar poets, including Dante and his works, primarily with his De vulgari eloquentia (through Trissino’s vulgarisation) and Divina Commedia.