Giornali di lettere e lettere per i giornali: la scrittura epistolare nelle pubblicazioni periodiche del Settecento e il caso delle «Memorie per servire all’istoria letteraria»

Periodicals, especially scholarly ones, are connected from their origin with the epistolary form. First because they replaced the correspondence that developed around some scholars, like Antonio Magliabechi, written to inform other scholars about the latest books or cultural events. Moreover, some scholarly newspapers were born from the letters that the editors received from their correspondents: adapted and modified, these texts could form the articles of the magazine; just think of the «Giornale de' letterati d'Italia», the «Novelle letterarie» by Giovanni Lami or the Venetians «Memorie per servire all'istoria letteraria», partly linked to Angelo Calogerà. This does not exclude the presence in the eighteenth century of newspapers in which the epistolary form was absent and others in which it was recovered only to create a fictional dialogue with readers. The contribution intends to present examples of the use of the letter form in the eighteenth-century newspapers, focusing on the case of the «Memorie per servire all’istoria letteraria».