Innovation and fusion: Sarbiewski’s theory of Baroque literary style

ENMaciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski in the theoretical work De acuto et arguto, written in the first half of the 17th century, concisely described poetic and literary principles of the Baroque as discors concordia, which meant the fusion of Classical concepts with Renaissance rhetoric and poetics. For Sarbiewski it was a rational outcome of juxtaposing unlikely conjunctions, namely acutum (‘sharpness’) and argutum (‘wit’). The main argument of this paper is that Sarbiewski’s concepts share the same spirit and intellectual premises as the post-Tridentine aesthetic category of decorum articulated in the art theory treatises of cardinal Federico Borromeo, Jesuit scholar Antonio Possevino, cardinal Gabriele Paleotti.