ABSTRACT

As much as Stigliani's was a poem of a new future it might equally be read as a lament for a future that did not belong to Italy. In its clear desire to be a part of this exciting new frontier lies the recognition that neither Italy, nor the papacy were actually shaping the New World to the extent that either hoped to. Stigliani's enthusiasm for the open seas and for marvels never before seen, signals a certain tacit allegiance to the mission of Ulysses and a hunger to be free of the bonds of a society where not only were new ideas stifled but their proponents were also punished. Even more than Stigliani's Columbus poem, the Jesuit Ubertino Carrara's 1715Columbus. Carmen Epicum, expressed "the triumphant Catholicism of the Counter-Reformation." Carrara, like Stigliani, links Columbus's expedition to those of Aeneas and Paul by introducting obstacles that delay the sailor.