Arcadia (poem)

Like the prose, the poetry is varied with a number of different poetical forms, including frottola, barzelletta, madrigal, and canzona.

Initially this literary collection was called Aeglogarum liber Arcadium inscriptus then Sannazaro decided to change the name to Libro pastorale nominato (intitulato) Arcadio.

The title became simply Arcadia and now consisted of a dedication, an introduction, twelve units of prose and verse, and an epilogue (A la Zampogna – To the bagpipes).

This last version was published by Pietro Summonte, who was a humanist and member of the Accademia Pontaniana, in Naples in 1504.

[6] What made this literary work so original was Sannazaro's decision to write in the Italian language instead of in a regional dialect or in Latin, which was extremely popular in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Its style created a completely artificial literary idiom, unspoken by either Florentines or Neapolitans.