Saverio Bettinelli was an Italian Jesuit writer. He became known as a polymath, dramatist, polemicist, poet, and literary critic. He was a friend of some of the leading authors of his times: Voltaire, Francesco Algarotti, Vincenzo Monti and Ippolito Pindemonte. Théodore Tronchin, Guillaume du Tillot, Melchiorre Cesarotti, Giacomo Filippo Durazzo, Pietro Verri, Giammaria Mazzucchelli and Francesco Maria Zanotti were among his correspondents.

The Accademia degli Arcadi or Accademia dell'Arcadia, "Academy of Arcadia" or "Academy of the Arcadians", was an Italian literary academy founded in Rome in 1690. The full Italian official name was Pontificia Accademia degli Arcadi.