Abstract: Musical theory in the 16th and 17th centuries sought to systematize in several treatises what could be called musical rhetoric, establishing relationships and analogies between literary rhetorical categories and the composition mechanisms inherent to music. These treatises are inevitable tools to understand the depth of the influence of the eloquence’s art on the period’s musical discourse and practice and cause a certain discomfort when employed as analytical subsidies: addressing classical rhetoric only partially or often superficially, or with significant disagreement among treatises, they force us to question the viability, the difficulties and the possibilities of employing rhetorical theories to approach musical objects, both in the critic sphere and in interpretive praxis.

Keywords: Baroque, musical rhetoric, musical analysis, musical theory.

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