ABSTRACT
Traiano Boccalini's anecdote, though clearly facetious and metaphorical, gives some idea of the extent to which Tasso's Aminta was generally revered and often crudely imitated. Internal textual evidence shows that many writers were influenced by episodes or scenarios from the Aminta, such as the false reports of suicides or deaths based on tokens and Tirsi's rescue of his beloved nymph from a satyr's clutches. By contrast, Tasso's innovation, of inserting tragicstyle choruses between the acts was not so consistently imitated during the 1580s, perhaps partly because of the technical difficulties involved. Indeed, Campiglia evidently had a copy of her play sent to the poet in 1589, hoping for some favourable comment, which came a couple of months later in the form of a polite letter paradoxically praising Flori as outshining his own Aminta. Many of the literary strategies used to legitimize; Torelli's pastoral play may be identified also in Maddalena Campiglia's Flori.
