REFLECTIONS OF ORALITY IN THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THE ‘ENLIGHTENED’ ARAGONESE DON JOSÉ NICOLÁS DE AZARA

Abstract

The ‘enlightened’ Aragonese Don José Nicolás de Azara spent much of his life in Italy (1765-1797), where he carried out important diplomatic tasks, as revealed by the reading of his rich Epistolario that, in the course of those activities, has reached posterity. The letters written with this purpose –as he warned himself– can contain, beyond the «official» formalities, more spontaneous expressive features if appropriate conditions are met. From this last point of view, the main goal of this paper is to analyse a representative sample of Italian influences that, in these «appropriate conditions», emerge in his correspondence.