Frugoni reveals himself to be a supporter of modern culture in his preference for the poetry of Torquato Tasso and Giambattista Marino over the masters of the Trecento: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.

[2][6] His own prose provides an outstanding example of Italian baroque style, with its emphasis on metaphors and conceits prescribed in the famous treatise Il cannocchiale aristotelico written by his friend Emanuele Tesauro.

The essay he wrote to accompany his own "opera melodrammatica," L'Epulone, published in Venice in 1675, is the first instance in which a poet of serious literary aspirations deigned to criticize contemporary librettists.

He was one of the first to undertake reform to make librettos more sober, condemning unrealistic and exaggerated elements and demanding for greater verisimilitude in plots and for literary dignity in texts, thus anticipating the work of Zeno and Metastasio.

[10][11] Despite recent interest in Baroque literature, the enormous length of Il cane di Diogene, which extends over more than four thousand pages,[12] has kept it from receiving the critical attention it deserves.