L'huomo di lettere

"L'huomo di lettere difeso ed emendato" by the Ferrarese Jesuit Daniello Bartoli (Rome, 1645) is a two-part treatise on the man of letters.

It first defends his high status, and then emends his faults, taking particular aim at excesses of the precious baroque style then in vogue. Bartoli's literary "how to" book quickly became a best-seller in Italy and in translation in numerous Latin, French, Spanish, and German editions. One, celebrating the Restoration and dedicated to George Monck, was translated under a pseudonym by the English Jesuit Thomas Plowden, S.J., The Learned Man Defended and Reform'd (London, 1660).