Renaissance in Italy Volume IV Part 35

[560] _Sonetti e Canzone [sic] del poeta clarissimo Matteo Maria Boiardo Conte di Scandiano_, Milano, 1845. The descriptions of natural beauty, especially of daybreak and the morning star, of dewy meadows, and of flowers, in which these lyrics abound, are very charming and at all points worthy of the fresh delightful inspiration of Boiardo's epic verse. Nor are they deficient in metrical subtlety; notice especially the intricate rhyming structure of a long Canto, pp. 44-49.

[561] See above, p. 15.

[562] See the exordium to the second Book, where it appears that the gentle poet caressed a vain hope that the peace of Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century was destined to revive chivalry.

[563] See the opening of Book II. Canto xviii. where Boiardo compares the Courts of Arthur and of Charlemagne.

[564] The acute and learned critic Pio Rajna, whose two ma.s.sive works of scholarlike research, _I Reali di Francia_ (Bologna, 1872), and _Le Fonti dell'Orlando Furioso_ (Firenze, 1876), have thrown a flood of light upon Chivalrous Romance literature in Italy, is at pains to prove that the _Orlando Innamorato_ contains a vein of conscious humor. See _Le Fonti_, etc., pp. 24-27. I agree with him that Boiardo treated his subject playfully. But it must be remembered that he was far from wis.h.i.+ng to indulge a secret sarcasm like Ariosto, or to make open fun of chivalry like Fortiguerra.

[565]

Mentre che io canto, o Dio redentore, Vedo l'Italia tutta a fiamma e foco, Per questi Galli, che con gran valore Vengon, per disertar non so che loco.

Compare II. x.x.xi. 50; III. i. 2.

[566] Orlando was not handsome (II. iii. 63):

avea folte le ciglia, E l'un de gli occhi alquanto stralunava.

[567] See his prayer, II. xxix. 36, 37.

[568] See the description of him in the tournament (I. ii. 63, iii.

4), when he saves the honor of Christendom to the surprise of everybody including himself. Again (I. vii. 45-65), when he defies and overthrows Grada.s.so, and liberates Charles from prison. The irony of both situations reveals a master's hand.

[569] For instance, when he attacks Argalia with his sword, contrary to stipulation, after being unhorsed by him (I. i. 71-73). The fury of Ferraguto in this scene is one of Boiardo's most brilliant episodes.

[570] His epithets are always _fiorito_, _fior di cortesia_, _di franchezza fiore_, etc. For the effect of his beauty, see II. xxi. 49, 50. The education of Ruggiero by Atalante was probably suggested to Boiardo by the tale of Cheiron and Achilles. See II. i. 74, 75.

[571] See II. i. 56, for Rodamonte's first appearance; for his atheism, II. iii. 22:

Che sol il mio buon brando e l'armatura E la mazza, ch'io porto, e 'l destrier mio E l'animo, ch'io ho, sono il mio Dio.

[572] II. iii. 40.

[573] In Bello's _Mambriano_, for instance, we have a very lively picture of the amorous and vain Astolfo. Pulci supplies us with even a more impressive Orlando than Boiardo's hero, while his Amazonian heroines, Meridiana and Antea, are at least rough sketches for Marfisa. It was Boiardo's merit to have grasped these characters and drawn them with a fullness of minute detail that enhances their vitality.

[574] Her arts and their success are splendidly set forth, I. xxv.

xxvi.

[575] In proem to II. xii., Boiardo makes an excuse, imitated by Ariosto to his lady for this bad treatment of women.

[576] Leodilla's story is found in I. xxi. xxii. xxiv. 14-17, 44.

[577] I. iii. 47-50.

[578] I. xxii. 24-27; I. xix. 60-65.

[579] I. xvii. 21, 22.

[580] II. vii. 50.

[581] II. xii. 14, _et seq._

[582] I. xvi. 36-44; xviii. 39-47; xix. 15, 16.

[583] I. v. 7-12; xix. 47; ix. 55-57.

[584] I. xviii. 39-47.

[585] I. xxv. 13, 14.

[586] I. xxvii. 15-22; xxviii. 4-11.

[587] II. vi. 7-15, 28-42; II. iv. 24-39; II. xiii. 20-23; I. xxv. 38.

[588] I. xxiii. 38, 47; xxvi. 28.

[589] I. xxiii. 6.

[590] Burne Jones, in his _Pan and Syrinx_, offers a parallel.

[591] II. xv. 43 _et seq._

[592] II. xvii. 49 _et seq._

[593] See II. x.x.xi. xlv.; III. i. ii.

[594] See I. viii. 56 _et seq._ The whole tale of Grifone and Marchino in that Canto is horrible.

[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 Frances...o...b..llo, 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 st.i.tched 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

ARIOSTO.

Ancestry and Birth of Ariosto--His Education--His Father's Death--Life at Reggio--Enters Ippolito d'Este's Service--Character of the Cardinal--Court Life--Composition and Publication of the _Furioso_--Quiet Life at Ferrara--Comedies--Governors.h.i.+p of Garf.a.gnana--His Son Virginio--Last Eight Years--Death--Character and Habits--The Satires--Latin Elegies and Lyrics--a.n.a.lysis of the Satires--Ippolito's Service--Choice of a Wife--Life at Court and Place-hunting--Miseries at Garf.a.gnana--Virginio's Education--Autobiographical and Satirical Elements--Ariosto's Philosophy of Life--Minor Poems--Alessandra Benucci--Ovidian Elegies--Madrigals and Sonnets--Ariosto's Conception of Love.

Ariosto's family was ancient and of honorable station in the Duchy of Ferrara. His father, Nicol, held offices of trust under Ercole I., and in the year 1472 was made Governor of Reggio, where he acquired property and married. His wife, Daria Maleguzzi, gave birth at Reggio in 1474 to their first-born, Lodovico, the poet. At Reggio the boy spent seven years of childhood, removing with his father in 1481 to Rovigo. His education appears to have been carried on at Ferrara, where he learned Latin but no Greek. This ignorance of Greek literature placed him, like Machiavelli, somewhat at a disadvantage among men of culture in an age that set great store upon the knowledge of both ancient languages. He was destined for a legal career; but, like Petrarch and Boccaccio, after spending some useless years in uncongenial studies, Ariosto prevailed upon his father to allow him to follow his strong bent for literature.

In 1500 Nicol Ariosto died, leaving a family of five sons and five daughters, with property sufficient for the honor of his house but scarcely adequate to the needs of his numerous children. Lodovico was the eldest. He therefore found himself at the age of twenty-six in the position of father to nine brothers and sisters, for whose education, start in life, and suitable settlement, he was called on to arrange. The administration of his father's estate, and the cares thus early thrust upon him, made the poet an exact man of business, and brought him acquainted with real life under its most serious aspects. He discharged his duties with prudence and fidelity; managing by economy to provide portions for his sisters and honorable maintenance for his brothers out of their joint patrimony.