«Non expectemus certe Turcum invadentem Italiam». Il mito della crociata nell’oratoria del Quattrocento

Abstract

The essay examines the value and diffusion of the crusade’s myth, in its political and ideological implications within the sacred and profane oratory of the 15th century. In particular, the essay analyses the Epistolae et orationes contra Turcos by cardinal Bessarione and their connection to the letters and orations by Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Constantinopolitana clades and Cum bellum hodie) and to the oration to Alfonso d’Aragona by Niccolò Sagundino. Precise intertextual references reveal an extraordinary thematic fixity and the progressive definition of a precise grid of topoi, that will have considerable vitality and fortune in anti-Ottoman literature.