Accademia degli Occulti explained

Accademia degli Occulti was a learned society founded in Brescia around the middle of the sixteenth century.^[1] Various dates are given for its founding: 1563,^[2] 1565^[3] or 1567.^[1] There is evidence that it may have existed as early as 1553.^[1] Its "prince", Alfonso Capriolo, is even said to have founded it as early as 1540.^[4]

The Occulti had written rules and formed a relatively long-lived and stable society until its disappearance sometime after 1623, when it is last mentioned. It was most active in the period around 1568–1570, when it published two collections of poetry.^[3] The Rime degli Academici occulti of 1568 is structured as fourteen chapters, each on a member of the academy. Each begins with the member's impresa (device), including an image and a motto; a prose commentary on the same by the academy's secretary, ; and a poem.^[1] Contributing poets include Antonio Querenghi^[3] and .^[1] The Occulti are also notable for their interest in natural philosophy.^[2] Agostino Gallo was a member.^[4]

External links

• Accademia degli Occulti, at Enciclopedia bresciana
• Occulti, Accademia degli, at Enciclopedia bresciana

Notes and References

1. Eveline Chayes, "Language of Words and Images in the Rime degli academici occulti, 1568: Reflections of the Pre-Conceptual?", in Lodi Nauta (ed.), Language and Cultural Change: Aspects of the Study and Use of Language in the Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Peeters, 2006), pp. 149–171.
2. James Edward McClellan III, Science Reorganized: Scientific Societies in the Eighteenth Century (Columbia University Press, 1985), p. 306.
3. Uberto Motta, Antonio Querenghi (1546–1633): un letterato padovano nella Roma del tardo Rinascimento (Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica, 1997), p. 35.
4. Mauro Ambrosoli, The Wild and the Sown: Botany and Agriculture in Western Europe, 1350–1850, trans. Mary McCann Salvatorelli (Cambridge University Press, 1997 [1992]), pp. 120–122.