The article investigates the cultural milieu of the poet Antonio Bruni, author of two anthologies, the Tre Grazie and Le Veneri, published in Rome between 1630 and 1633, illuminating how Bruni conformed to the cultural programs of the Barberini circle and the Academy of Humorists. Next to Bernini appear other names: the painters Giovanni Baglione, Guido Reni and Paolo Guidotti,Torquato Perotti, Andrea Barbazza and cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, of whom Bruni describes paintings and sculptures held by them. The essay focuses on the various tipologies and aims of quotationes: imitation of Giovan Battista Marino, rhetorical code of poetry. In this sense, his numerous declarations presenti in Tre Grazie and his Le Veneri are quite useful as eloquent programmatic indications revealing a progressive will to overcome Renaissance models.