Un santo edipico in Sarmazia. Trasformazioni romanzesche della Vita sancti Albani di Pietro de’ Natali (1330-1406) nel Principe santo di Giovanni Battista Moroni (m. 1645).

FICTIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF PIETRO DE’ NATALI’S (1330-1406) VITA SANCTI ALBANI IN GIOVANNI BATTISTA MORONI’S (D. 1645) PRINCIPE SANTO this article describes the rewriting process of Pietro de’ Natali’s Vita Sancti Albani in Giovanni Battista Moroni’s Principe Santo. through contextualising the experience among the canons of the 17th-century devotional novel and detecting the cultural and literary influences, this study explores the traits of the didactical project underpinned in the book, in which devotional purposes, moral meditations and political precepts are strongly intertwined. Finally, specific analyses are dedicated to the new geographical setting evoked in the novel, an ahistorical medieval Sarmatia (Poland); these examine the perception of a distant land and show the functional use of geographical elements to testify the historicity of an incredible story.