Keywords

• Of the boundless territory of the fortune of Aesop in modern literatures this study examines a meaningful part
• that of the proverbial Baroque fable
• specifically the Bestiarum schola by Pompeo Sarnelli (1649-1724). Sarnelli was an apostolic protonotary and bishop
• an erudite antiquarian
• grammarian and historian. What emerges is his restless identity as an abbot absorbed in the long term processes of the Renaissance in Southern Italy
• intellectually prone to a reading voracity that drove him towards the ambiguous borders of late 17th century ecclesiastical culture and politics
• bending the limits of orthodoxy. He was convinced he could illustrate
• using the apparent naivety of the zoological allegory and the realistic irony of the short story
• the lacerations of his time: in the fields of knowledge
• power
• and sinning humanity