This course offers a survey of seventeenth-century Italian literature and examines the development of specific literary genres in the contexts of cultural and intellectual history. It provides methodologies and philological instruments necessary to the critical reading of a variety of narrative and poetic texts in the perspective of literary and cultural cross-currents of this time period. Special attention will be devoted to the nature and function of the early baroque novel and poetry, Counter-Reformation oratory, libertine fiction and ideology. Textual analysis will be conducted also on seventeenth-century printed editions with the purpose of allowing the students to familiarize themselves with the typographic characteristics and oddities of antique books. The contribution of graduate students will consist of an oral presentation and a critical essay.