«Ornarse de laudata peritia».

Epistolary Rhetoric and Socio-Stylistic Networks in Fifteenth-Century Vernacular Italian

Abstract

The article examines one aspect of the fortune of the ars dictaminis in fifteenth-century Italy, focusing on its adaptation within vernacular epistolary writing. Through the case of Bartolomeo Miniatore’s Formulario di esordi ed epistole missive e responsive per Giacomo Bolognini, it investigates how forms inherited from the medieval dictaminal tradition were transferred into the vernacular and adapted to changing political and social contexts. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between rhetorical training and the written practices of urban and courtly elites, within which personal ties, patronage, recommendation, favour, obligation, and service played a central role. The analysis of three exordia shows how such models provided linguistic forms for expressing and regulating these relations. From this perspective, vernacular epistolary rhetoric appears as one of the contexts in which the heritage of the ars dictaminis was reworked and adapted to the communicative practices of fifteenth-century society.