We have selected some revealing quotes for the evolution and involution of
the aesthetics of the ugly (as Evil), always associated with the barbarian, the savage,
the primitive. The selection took into account the paradigmatic moments of history
and the radical changes that took place. The preoccupation of the Baroque, as a
refinement of man (Christian), was the pedagogical distinction between animalitas
and humanitas, between biological and cultural, the search for unity between the
physical and metaphysical aspect of man, between the civilization of the word
(writing) and the primitivism of orality (voice). The Baroque foreshadowed the
emergence of a new model of reference to universal values and national specificity,
as Freedom, even if still opposed to libertinism and anarchy, and in Enlightenment
and Modernity.