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Abstract:   UNDERGROUND LITERATUR AND POLITICAL CONSPIRACIES IN ROME AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 18 CENTURY: THE CASE OF ENRICO TRIVELLI (1736-1737) The story concerns Enrico Trivelli, a young writer of Neapolitan ancestry, who lived in Rome in the 1730s. The framework is the conflict between Pope Clement XII and the Bourbon king of Naples, Charles III, which had begun with the latter’s ascent to the throne in 1734 and increased during the following years: the acts of violence perpetrated by the Neapolitans within pontifical territory in 1736 and the beginning of 1737, just as Freemasonry was about to be condemned in the papal bull In Eminenti. Trivelli is emblematic of the contradictions of this conflict. He was a typical exponent of “underground literature”, lampooner, writer of pamphlets and, above all, a number of political anticlerical tracts and was a neo-ghibelline advocate, siding with Charles III. He found himself involved in a complicated situation and fell into the mesh of justice. After a difficult and dramatic trial, he was sentenced to death. The peculiarities of the Neapolitan intellectual circles, that he claimed to know well, his heterodox reading and his shameless disrespect for the rules, all weighed against him in the verdict. Although only indirectly, other factors came into play. Among these were the contradictions inherent in the Giannone affaire whose documents the Pope had hoped in vain to obtain during the months of the trial. Another was the concern of the Holy See Freemasonry, with which Trivelli ad contact, in both the Pontifical State and the Naples’ environs.