The Project Gutenberg eBook of Renaissance in Italy, Italian Literature, Part 1 (of 2), by John Addington Symonds.

[595] On Ariosto's treatment of Boiardo's characters there is much excellent criticism in Pio Rajna's Le Fonti dell'Orlando Furioso (Firenze, Sansoni, 1876), pp. 43-53.

[596] I do not mean that other poets—Pulci and Bello, for example—had not interwoven episodical novelle. The latter's poem of Mambriano owes all its interest to the episodes, and many of its introductory reflections are fair specimens of the discursive style. But the peculiarity of Boiardo, as followed by Ariosto, consisted in the art of subordinating these subsidiary motives to the main design. Neither Pulci nor Bello showed any true sense of poetical unity. It may here be parenthetically remarked that Francesco Bello, a native of Ferrara, called Il Cieco because of his blindness, recited his Mambriano at the Mantuan Court of the Gonzagas. It was not printed till after his death in 1509. This poem consists of a series of tales, loosely stitched together, each canto containing just enough to stimulate the attention of an idle audience. Rinaldo, Astolfo, and Mambriano, king of Bithynia, play prominent parts in the action.

[597] See Satire, i. 100-102; ii. 109-111.

[598] See Satire, i. 113-123, for his reasons. He seems chiefly to have dreaded the loss of personal liberty, if he took orders.

[599] Ippolito is said to have asked the poet: "Dove avete trovato, messer Lodovico, tante corbellerie?" That he did in effect say something of the kind is proved by Satire, ii. 94-99.

[600] Campori, Notizie per la Vita di L. Ariosto (Modena, Vincenzi, 1871), pp. 55-58.

[601] Ibid. p. 58.

[602] He penned the following couplet in 1503, when it is to be hoped he had yet not learned to know his master's real qualities:

Quis patre invicto gerit Hercule fortius arma,
Mystica quis casto castius Hippolyto?

In another epigram, written on the death of the Cardinal, he pretends that Ippolito, hearing of Alfonso's illness, vowed his own life for his brother's and was accepted. See Opere Minori, i. 349.

[603] See Satires ii. vii.; Capitoli i. ii.

[604] Campori, op. cit. p. 59.

[605] See Satire iv. 67-72.

[606] See Satire v. 172-204.

[607] This is one of the pretty stories on which some doubt has lately been cast. See Campori, pp. 105-110, for a full discussion of its probable truth.

[608] "Small, but suited to my needs, freehold, not mean, the fruit of my own earnings." His son Virginio substituted another inscription which may still be seen upon the little house-front: Sic domus hæc Areostea propitios habeat deos olim ut Pindarica—"May this house of Ariosto have gods propitious as of old the house of Pindar."

[609] The date is uncertain. It was not before 1522, perhaps even so late as 1527.

[610] xv. 28; xxxiii. 24.

[611] See Panizzi, op. cit. vol. vi. p. cxix. for a description of these verbal changes.

[612] See especially Satire ii. 28-51, and Capitolo i.

[613] "Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa," etc., Op. Min. i. 365.

[614] See the Opere Minori, vol. i. p. 336. Also Carducci's eloquent defense of these Horatian verses in his essay, Delle Poesie Latine di L. Ariosto (Bologna, Zanichelli, 1876), p. 82. The latter treatise is a learned criticism of Ariosto's Latin poetry from a point of view somewhat too indulgent to Ariosto as a poet and a man. Carducci, for example, calls the four Alcaic stanzas in question "una cosellina quasi perfetta," though they contain three third lines like these:

Furore militis tremendo....
Jacentem aquæ ad murmur cadentis....
Mecumque cespite hoc recumbens.

Ariosto was but second-rate among the Latin versifiers of his century. It must, however, be added that his Latin poems were written in early manhood and only published after his death by Giambattista Pigna, in 1553.

[615] Op. Min. vol. i. p. 333:

Quid nostra an Gallo regi an servire Latino,
Si sit idem hinc atque hinc non leve servitium?
Barbaricone esse est pejus sub nomine, quam sub
Moribus? At ducibus, Dii, date digna malis.

What Ariosto thought about the Italian despots finds full expression in the Cinque Canti, ii. 5, 6, where he protests that Caligula, Nero, Phalaris, Dionysius and Creon were surpassed by them in cruelty and crime.

[616] I have followed the order of Lemonnier's edition, vol. i. of Opere Minori, Florence, 1857. But the dates of composition are uncertain, and it may be doubted whether Ariosto's own autograph can be taken as the basis of a chronological arrangement. Much obscurity rests upon these poems. We do not know, for instance, whether they were sent to the friends addressed in them by name, or whether the author intended them for publication. The student may profitably consult upon these points the lithographed facsimile of the autograph, published at Bologna by Zanichelli in 1875. Meanwhile it is enough to mention that the first epistle was addressed to Messer Galasso Ariosto, the poet's brother, the second to Messer Alessandro Ariosto and Messer Lodovico da Bagno, the third and fourth to Messer Annibale Maleguccio, the fifth to Messer Sismondo Maleguccio, the sixth to Messer Buonaventura Pistofilo, and the seventh to Monsignore Pietro Bembo.

[617] The first and second Capitoli, upon the irksome and exhausting service of the Cardinal, as dangerous to Ariosto's health as it was irritating to his temper, should be read side by side with this Epistle.

[618] See above, p. 505, for Ariosto's liking for turnips. He ate them with vinegar and wine sauce.

[619] Compare the apologue of the gourd and the pear-tree in the sixth Satire (55-114). It is to the same effect, but even plainer.

[620] The word I have translated "magpie" is gaza in the autograph. This has been interpreted as a slip of the pen for ganza; but it may be a Lombardism for gazza. In the latter case we should translate it "magpie," in the former "sweetheart." I prefer to read gazza, as the ironical analogy between a magpie and a poet is characteristic of Ariosto.

[621] The irony of this passage is justly celebrated. After all his hopes and all the pontiff's promises, the poet gets a kiss, a trifling favor, and has to trudge down from the Vatican to his inn. The mezza bolla is supposed to refer to the fine for entrance on the little benefice of Sant'Agata, half of which Leo remitted.

[622] The third elegy is a beautiful lamentation over his separation from his mistress. Written to ease his heart in solitude, it is more impassioned and less guarded than the epistle.

[623] It may be interesting to compare this scarcely disguised satire with the official flatteries of Canzone ii. and Elegies i., xiv., where Ariosto praises the Medici, and especially Lorenzo, as the saviours of Florence, the honor of Italy.

[625] As when, for instance, he calls the sun in the first Canzone, "l'omicida lucido d'Achille." Several of the sonnets are artificial in their tropes.