One of Mazzoni’s more interesting contributions to criticism is his discussion of mimesis in poetry. Mazzoni departs from his predecessors in that he conceives poetic imitation as not the recreation of an actual object, but of the recreation of an ideal. This idea, which has been compared to Baudrillard’s simulacrum, Mazzoni calls the “idol” – a concept constructed by human artifice to which poetic imitations are compared in order to determine their believability. Mazzoni discusses believability or credibility, rather than truth – he defines poetry as a sophistic activity, the purpose of which is not to recreate truth, but rather to mimic that which will have the proper effect on the audience. As Mazzoni says, “if it should happen that two things should appear before the poet, one of them false but credible and the other true but incredible or at least not very credible, then the poet must leave the true and follow the credible.”