In the encomiastic production of the 18th-century Friuli, flourishing both on the Venetian and on the Archducal side, there are also two poetic collections belonging to Gorizia which include compositions in several languages. The first of them, printed in Udine in 1744, celebrates the taking of possession of the captaincy of Gradisca by Baron Antonio De Fin; the second, on the other hand, enjoys a much broader scope in various respects, since it celebrates with a wider range of languages the important role played by Giovanni Filippo Cobenzl in the stipulation of the Teschen Treaty between Austria and Prussia (1779). The article will focus on the second collection. It will briefly recall its critical fortune and will review the promoters, authors and languages involved; it will grasp the links with that dense network of relationships that would soon be consolidated in the Arcadia Romano-Sonziaca; it will also present the principal themes, the intertextual connections, and the metric and stylistic solutions, isolating the elements of continuity and those of discontinuity with respect to the Arcadian tradition; finally, it will show how the compositions of this collection also convey an ideological message that is not limited to mere and predictable encomiastic content.
