The Age of Wonder and Entertainment: An Introduction to Intermedial Networks in Baroque Culture

More than any other time in modern European history, the period that roughly coincides with the seventeenth century and falls under the definition of ‘the Baroque’ was crucial in shaping the modern idea of ‘mediascape’ and in constructing the system of interrelations between the arts that is still active today. Nevertheless, the very notion of ‘mediascape’, together with the hermeneutical tools provided by intermedial studies, have seldom been applied to the study of the Baroque. The paper analyzes this issue, with a special focus on tragicomedy, which is perhaps the genre that best represents the experimental anxiety of Renaissance and Baroque literature, and their search for new expressive strategies.