Gli Animali Parlanti di Giovan Battista Casti. Tra satira e zooepica

Gli animali parlanti is a zooepic poem by Giovan Battista Casti in which the author alludes to the political situation in revolutionary France. Rather than attacking individual characters, the author often criticizes the grounds on which political and ecclesiastical systems were built. By narrating a war between animals, the author recalls the type-scenes of classical epics and satirically parodies them. Although the author hoped to avoid censorship using animal characters, Gli animali parlanti was put in the Index of Prohibited Books. Despite the censorship and the negative reviews of some important literary personalities of Casti's time, the work had a huge success. The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between political satire and animalistic characters, trying to highlight the satirical attacks that were most condemned by the authorities.