THE RENAISSANCE AND ARIOSTO
We have seen that Petrarch is considered the founder of the Renaissance
in Italy. He died in 1374, and it took a century and more to complete
the work he inaugurated. The whole of the fifteenth century is of
importance in the history of Italian literature, not so much for what it
produced, as for the fact that it prepared the way for the so-called
"Golden Age" of the sixteenth century. During these hundred years
classical scholarship became more and more widely diffused, being no
longer confined to a few cities or princely courts, but spread over all
Italy and through all classes of society.
Yet Florence still remained the great center of this influence. Under
the powerful family of the Medici the city had risen to great power and
prosperity, and amid all the political confusion of the times it
continued to be characterized by a keen intellectual and aesthetic life.
The immediate successors of Petrarch and Boccaccio in the spread of the
new learning, Luigi Marsili and Coluccio Salutati, lived and worked at
Florence. Later came Poggio Bracciolini, who equaled Petrarch himself as
an eager and successful collector of manuscripts; Marsilio Ficino, who
founded under Cosimo de' Medici the famous Platonic academy; Pico della
Mirandola, the youthful prodigy of learning and mystical enthusiast; and
Politian, the greatest scholar and most elegant poet of his day. These
men studied not only Latin as Petrarch had done, but obtained a good
knowledge of Greek. They plunged eagerly into the study of Plato, who
for so many centuries had been unknown to western Europe, and who now
threatened to take the place of Aristotle in the world of philosophy.
They gathered statues, coins, and inscriptions, and studied ruins in
order to obtain as clear an idea as possible of the ancient world. It is
hard for us to-day to get an idea of the eager enthusiasm and intense
delight in study of these men of the Renaissance; they must have felt as
Wordsworth did when he cried out:
"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven."
The scholars of the time enjoyed an immense popularity. A new caste of
society arose, not dependent on birth or wealth, but on learning and
intelligence. Princes and cities sought for their services, for which
they paid large sums. Everywhere they were received as equal to the
noblest in the land. The movement reached its highest point in the first
half of the sixteenth century, when the intellectual and artistic life
of Italy was of almost incredible greatness. In proof of this statement
we need only mention a few names, such as Michel Angelo, Raphael,
Leonardo da Vinci, Ariosto, and Macchiavelli; Tasso belongs to the same
group, though born out of due season.
Naturally enough the early Humanists wrote for the most part in Latin,
which they still looked upon as the language of their ancestors and
thus, in a certain sense, their mother-tongue. Indeed, many at first
despised the vernacular as a base corruption. Later, however, a reaction
set in; the example of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio induced others to
write in Italian, which now became more and more polished and adapted to
become the medium of a great literature. This new impulse toward a
national literature was first given at Florence, at the court of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, who himself, next to Politian, was the greatest poet of
his day. We cannot linger, however, over these fifteenth century
writers, but must hasten on to the next century and to the consideration
of Ariosto, the supreme poet of the Renaissance.
In discussing the romantic poetry of Ariosto, however, we must go back a
number of years in order to get the proper perspective. Among the
brilliant men of letters of the court of the Medici was a certain Luigi
Pulci, of a poor but noble family. It was he who was the first to
introduce into elegant literature the old romances of the Carlovingian
cycle, which for centuries had been sung and recited by rude, wandering
minstrels in the public streets of Italy.
We have seen in Chapter I. how in the thirteenth century the old French
_chansons de gestes_ had been introduced into North Italy and had there
become popular; these had been rewritten and worked over in rude forms
for the amusement of the common folk, but up to the time of Pulci had
found no place in literature proper. Now it is the glory of Pulci to
have brought this popular material into the realm of artistic poetry.
This he is said to have done at the request of Lorenzo's mother, the
result being the poem known as Morgante. In this poem Pulci introduces
as the chief character Orlando, the Italian form of Roland, the nephew
of Charlemagne, and the hero of Roncesvalles, who plays so large a role
in the French romances. The title is derived from the name of a giant
whose life has been saved by Orlando, whom he, in gratitude therefor,
follows as a faithful servant; he drops out of the story in the
twentieth canto.
Pulci, in his Morgante, follows closely the popular poetry of his
predecessors, but differs from them in language, style, and especially
in the comic treatment of his theme; in all these respects he is the
forerunner of Boiardo and Ariosto. As we have seen, he was a native of
Florence, which, up to the end of the fifteenth century, had been the
chief center of the literary glory of Italy. The scene now changes to
Ferrara, where the house of Este had for generations held a brilliant
court. It was here that the three great poets, Boiardo, Ariosto, and
Tasso, lived and produced their works.
Boiardo has been so eclipsed by Ariosto that he is not known as well as
he ought to be, when we consider his services to Italian literature. To
him belongs the credit of having invented the romantic epic, and
Ariosto, who followed in the same lines, added but little to the general
groundwork of his predecessor.
Matteo Maria Boiardo was born of a noble family at Reggio in 1434, and
having early gone to Ferrara, remained there till his death in 1494. A
scholar, poet, administrator, and courtier, his position at the court of
the duke of Este reminds us involuntarily of that of Goethe, three
hundred years later, at Weimar. His first essays in literature were in
Latin, but when he was about forty years old he began his poem of
Orlando Innamorato (Roland in Love). He was led naturally thereto.
Ferrara had early favored chivalrous poetry, and the library of the duke
contained a large number of romances, belonging especially to the
Arthurian cycle, which pleased the elegant society of the court more
than the Carlovingian stories so popular with the common people. These
romances of King Arthur and the Round Table, however, were in French.
Boiardo's great merit consists in the fact that he united in one the
various characteristics of both the Carlovingian and the Arthurian
romances, and thus combined the popular and the courtly element. He
chose the characters of his poem from the former, but changed them to
true knights of chivalry, and added all the paraphernalia of the
Arthurian tales. Of especial importance was the introduction of romantic
love as the motive of all action.
The general theme of Orlando Innamorato is the war between Charlemagne
and the Saracens, yet there is no one definite action, as in the case of
the regular epic. Rather the poem consists of a series of independent,
or at least very loosely connected, episodes, in which the adventures of
the various knights errant are recounted with great skill and interest.
Chief among these episodes is that of Orlando and his love for Angelica,
the daughter of the king of Cathay, who comes to the court of
Charlemagne in Paris, and by means of her beauty and coquetry succeeds
in drawing away a number of the best Christian warriors. Other
important characters are Astolfo, Rodomonte, Rinaldo, and the latter's
sister, Brandiamente, who falls in love with the pagan Roger, who,
according to Boiardo, was the founder of the house of Este. Vast as the
poem is in its present state, Boiardo left it only half finished when he
died in 1494.
At the time of Boiardo's death Ludovico Ariosto was a youth of twenty.
Born in Reggio, in 1474, of a family that had long been in the service
of the Este family, he too, after an irregular and tardy education came
to Ferrara and entered the service of the Cardinal Este. At the death of
his father, in 1500, Ariosto found himself at the head of a family of
ten, and nobly performed his duty by caring and providing for all his
brothers and sisters. His position in the household of the cardinal was
not at all to his liking; he was often sent on embassies and business
trips, a function which, to a man who loved quiet and leisure as much as
Ariosto did, was utterly distasteful. In 1517 he refused to accompany
the cardinal to Hungary, on the ground of ill-health, and was thereupon
summarily dismissed. He found soon, however, more congenial employment
in the household of Duke Alfonso. His life now was more quiet and
afforded him more opportunity for study and writing. Yet even here he
was not content. His inclinations were all against court life, and he
only retained his position on account of his poverty. His character, as
depicted in his satires, was very different from that of Petrarch, who
was a successful courtier. Ariosto could not bow and smile and make
himself agreeable. He was sincere and independent by nature, modest in
his desires, kindly and amiable, loved nature, quiet study, and rural
occupations. In 1527 he succeeded in saving enough to buy a small house
at Ferrara, with a garden attached. Over the door he placed the
inscription which has become famous: "Small, but suited to me; harmful
to no one; bought with my own money." Here he spent the remainder of his
days, happy and contented, amusing himself with almost childish joy in
the cultivation of his garden. He died June 6, 1533.
Ariosto's literary work consists of comedies, which are among the very
first of modern literature; satires and the Orlando Furioso (Mad
Roland). The satires rank next in literary value to his masterpiece, and
are charming examples of the poetic epistle rather than biting satire.
They contain many details of the society of the day, and are our best
source for the life and character of their author. They are all inspired
with kindly humor and full of worldly wisdom and common sense. No one
can read these satires without feeling a respect and affection for the
poet who wrote them.
Ariosto's most famous work, however, is the Orlando Furioso. When he
came to Ferrara everybody was talking about the Orlando Innamorato of
Boiardo. Ariosto himself admired it immensely, for it harmonized
perfectly with his own genius and literary tastes. Hence when there came
to him that mysterious command, "Write," which all men of poetical
genius hear some day or other, it was only natural that he should turn
to the unfinished poem of his predecessor, with the thought of
completing it.
Yet it would be a mistake to think Ariosto was a mere plagiarist or that
he lacked originality. No writer ever lived who has so impressed his
own individuality on his works as he. He took the data furnished by his
predecessors and joined to them all the culture of the times, ideas,
aspirations, conception of life; all these he fused into one vast work
which reflects the age of the Renaissance as truly as the Divine Comedy
reflects the closing period of the Middle Ages.
It is practically impossible to give a clear yet brief outline of
Orlando Furioso. It does not, like the Iliad, AEneid, Paradise Lost, and
Jerusalem Delivered, contain one central action, with which all parts
are logically connected, but is rather a vast arena on which take place
many different and independent actions at the same time. The wars
between Charlemagne and the Saracens, which had been begun in Boiardo's
poem, are here continued and carried to an end. In similar manner
Ariosto takes up the history of the various knights errant introduced by
his predecessor, and either continues their adventures or introduces new
ones himself. In the first canto the poet shows us the army of Agramante
before the walls of Paris, in which Charlemagne and his army are shut
up, and in the course of the poem he shows us the city freed, the enemy
defeated, and Christianity saved from the dominion of the Saracen. Yet
this is not the real center of action; often it is entirely lost sight
of in the confusing crowd of individual adventures. It only serves as a
factitious means of joining from time to time the scattered threads of
the various episodes. When the poet does not know what to do with any
particular character, he despatches him forthwith to Paris, there to
await the final denouement.
The individual heroes are free, not bound by any ties of discipline to
Charlemagne; they leave at any moment, in obedience to individual
caprice, and wander forth in search of love and honor. It is in these
various episodes or adventures that the true interest of the poem
resides. At first sight there seems to be an inextricable confusion in
the way they are told; but after careful study we find that the poet
always controls them with a firm hand. A constant change goes on before
our eyes. When one story has been told for some time, the poet, fearing
to weary the reader, breaks it off, always at an interesting point, to
begin another, which, in its turn, yields to another, and this to still
another; from time to time these stories are taken up again, continued,
and finished. All these transitions are marvels of skill and ingenuity.
Among the crowd of minor episodes three stand out with especial
distinctness, the story of Cloridan and Medoro, Angelica's love for the
latter and the consequent madness of Orlando; and the death of Zerbino.
Cloridan and Medoro are two brave young pagans, whose lord and master,
Dardinello, has been slain in battle with Charlemagne's army outside the
walls of Paris. Now the two youths, as they stand on guard at night,
lament that their master's body lies unburied and dishonored on the
field of battle, and resolve to go and find it and bring it back to
camp.
These two were posted on a rampart's height,
With more to guard the encampment from surprise,
When 'mid the equal intervals, at night,
Medoro gazed on heaven with sleepy eyes.
In all his talk, the stripling, woful wight,
Here cannot choose, but of his lord devise,
The royal Dardinel; and evermore
Him, left unhonored on the field, deplore.
Then, turning to his mate, cries: "Cloridane,
I cannot tell thee what a cause of woe
It is to me, my lord upon the plain
Should lie, unworthy food for wolf or crow!
Thinking how still to me he was humane,
Meseems, if in his honor I forego
This life of mine, for favors so immense
I shall but make a feeble recompense.
"That he may lack not sepulture, will I
Go forth, and seek him out among the slain;
And haply God may will that none shall spy
Where Charles's camp lies hushed. Do thou remain;
That, if my death be written in the sky,
Thou may'st the deed be able to explain.
So that if Fortune foil so fair a feat,
The world, through Fame, my loving heart may weet."
Seeing that nought would bend him, nought would move,
"I too will go," was Cloridan's reply,
"In such a glorious act myself will prove;
As well such famous death I covet, I:
What other thing is left me, here above,
Deprived of thee, Medoro mine? To die
With thee in arms is better, on the plain,
Than afterwards of grief, should'st thou be slain."
So they go forth on their generous enterprise, and after slaying many
distinguished warriors among the Christians, as they lay asleep, they
approach the tent of Charlemagne, near which they find the body of their
master:
The horrid mixture of the bodies there
Which heaped the plain where roved these comrades sworn,
Might well have rendered vain their faithful care
Amid the mighty piles, till break of morn,
Had not the moon, at young Medoro's prayer,
Out of a gloomy cloud put forth her horn.
Medoro to the heavens upturns his eyes
Towards the moon, and thus devoutly cries:
"O holy goddess! whom our fathers well
Have styled as of a triple form, and who
Thy sovereign beauty dost in heaven, and hell,
And earth, in many forms reveal; and through
The greenwood holt, of beast and monster fell,
--A huntress bold--the flying steps pursue,
Show where my king, amid so many lies,
Who did, alive, thy holy studies prize."
At the youth's prayer from parted cloud outshone
(Were it the work of faith or accident)
The moon, as fair, as when Endymion
She circled in her naked arms: with tent,
Christian or Saracen, was Paris-town
Seen in that gleam, and hill and plain's extent.
With these Mount Martyr and Mount Lery's height,
This on the left, and that upon the right.
The silvery splendor glistened yet more clear,
There where renowned Almontes's son lay dead.
Faithful Medoro mourned his master dear,
Who well agnized the quartering white and red,
With visage bathed in many a bitter tear
(For he a rill from either eyelid shed),
And piteous act and moan, that might have whist
The winds, his melancholy plaint to list;
Hurrying their steps, they hastened, as they might,
Under the cherished burden they conveyed;
And now approaching was the lord of light,
To sweep from heaven the stars, from earth the shade,
When good Zerbino, he, whose valiant sprite
Was ne'er in time of need by sleep down-weighed,
From chasing Moors all night, his homeward way
Was taking to the camp at dawn of day.
He has with him some horsemen in his train,
That from afar the two companions spy.
Expecting thus some spoil or prize to gain,
They, every one, towards that quarter his.
"Brother, behoves us," cries young Cloridane,
"To cast away the load we bear, and fly:
For 'twere a foolish thought (might well be said)
To lose _two_ living men, to save _one_ dead;"
And dropt the burden, weening his Medore
Had done the same by it, upon his side;
But that poor boy, who loved his master more,
His shoulders to the weight, alone, applied;
Cloridan hurrying with all haste before,
Deeming him close behind him or beside;
Who, did he know his danger, him to save
A thousand deaths, instead of one, would brave.
So far was Cloridan advanced before,
He heard the boy no longer in the wind;
But when he marked the absence of Medore,
It seemed as if his heart was left behind.
"Ah! how was I so negligent (the Moor
Exclaimed), so far beside myself, and blind,
That I, Medoro, should without thee fare,
Nor know when I deserted thee or where?"
So saying, in the wood he disappears,
Plunging into the maze with hurried pace;
And thither, whence he lately issued, steers,
And, desperate, of death returns in trace.
Cries and the tread of steeds this while he hears,
And word and threat of foemen, as in chase;
Lastly Medoro by his voice is known,
Disarmed, on foot, 'mid many horse, alone.
A hundred horsemen who the youth surround,
Zerbino leads, and bids his followers seize
The stripling; like a top, the boy turns round
And keeps him as he can: among the trees,
Behind oak, elm, beech, ash, he takes his ground,
Nor from the cherished load his shoulders frees.
Wearied, at length, the burden he bestowed
Upon the grass, and stalked about his load.
Cloridan, who to aid him knows not how,
And with Medoro willingly would die,
But who would not for death this being forego,
Until more foes than one should lifeless lie,
Ambushed, his sharpest arrow to his bow
Fits, and directs it with so true an eye,
The feathered weapon bores a Scotchman's brain,
And lays the warrior dead upon the plain.
Enraged at this, Zerbino leaps forward to wreak revenge on Medoro, but
he, begging to be allowed to bury his master so touches Zerbino with his
youthful beauty that he is inclined to spare him, and one of his own
followers smiting Medoro, who stands in suppliant attitude, Zerbino, in
a rage, pursues him and followed by his companions, disappears, leaving
Cloridan dead and Medoro gravely wounded.
In the meantime--
By chance arrived a damsel at the place,
Who was (though mean and rustic was her wear)
Of royal presence and of beauteous face,
And lofty manners, sagely debonair:
Her have I left unsung so long a space,
That you will hardly recognize the fair.
Angelica, in her (if known not) scan,
The lofty daughter of Cathay's great khan.
This is Angelica, who having despised the love of Orlando, now finally
meets her fate in the person of Medoro:
When fair Angelica the stripling spies,
Nigh hurt to death in that disastrous fray,
Who for his king, that there unsheltered lies,
More sad than for his own misfortune lay,
She feels new pity in her bosom rise,
Which makes its entry in unwonted way.
Touched was her haughty heart, once hard and curst,
And more when he his piteous tale rehearsed.
And calling back to memory her art,
For she in Ind had learned chirurgery,
(Since it appears such studies in that part
Worthy of praise and fame are held to be,
And, as an heirloom, sires to sons impart,
With little aid of books, the mystery)
Disposed herself to work with simples' juice,
Till she in him should healthier life produce.
She succeeds in curing him, and falling desperately in love, marries him
and departs for Cathay, of which she designs making her husband king.
After some time Orlando comes that way and finds engraved on trees in
love-knots and intertwined names, the evidence of the love of Angelica
and Medoro:
Turning him round, he there, on many a tree,
Beheld engraved, upon the woody shore,
What as the writing of his deity
He knew, as soon as he had marked the lore.
This was a place of those described by me,
Whither ofttimes, attended by Medore,
From the near shepherd's cot had wont to stray
The beauteous lady, sovereign of Cathay.
In a hundred knots, amid those green abodes,
In a hundred parts, their cyphered names are dight;
Whose many letters are so many goads,
Which Love has in his bleeding heart-core pight.
He would discredit in a thousand modes,
That which he credits in his own despite;
And would parforce persuade himself, _that_ rhind
Other Angelica than his had signed.
He tries to convince himself that there is no truth in all this, but in
vain, for meeting the shepherd at whose house Angelica had brought
Medoro, he learns in detail the whole story. Upon hearing this he rushes
forth from the cottage and hastens to the forest, where he can give full
vent to the sorrow that fills his heart, and where he gradually loses
all control of himself, and finally becomes raging mad:
All night about the forest roved the count,
And, at the break of daily light, was brought
By his unhappy fortune to the fount,
Where his inscription young Medoro wrought.
To see his wrongs inscribed upon that mount,
Inflamed his fury so, in him was nought
But turned to hatred, frenzy, rage, and spite;
Nor paused he more, but bared his falchion bright.
Cleft through the writing; and the solid block,
Into the sky, in tiny fragments sped.
Wo worth each sapling and that caverned rock,
Where Medore and Angelica were read!
So scathed, that they to shepherd or to flock
Thenceforth shall never furnish shade or bed.
And that sweet fountain, late so clear and pure,
From such tempestuous wrath was ill secure.
For he turf, stone, and trunk, and shoot, and lop
Cast without cease into the beauteous source;
Till, turbid from the bottom to the top,
Never again was clear the troubled course.
At length, for lack of breath, compelled to stop,
(When he is bathed in sweat, and wasted force,
Serves not his fury more) he falls, and lies
Upon the mead, and, gazing upward, sighs.
Wearied and woe-begone, he fell to ground,
And turned his eyes toward heaven; nor spake he aught,
Nor ate, nor slept, till in his daily round
The golden sun had broken thrice, and sought
His rest anew; nor ever ceased his wound
To rankle, till it marred his sober thought.
At length, impelled by frenzy, the fourth day,
He from his limbs tore plate and mail away.
Thus begins the madness of Orlando, who, after performing prodigious
deeds of strength on men, cattle, and trees, is seized with
restlessness, and wanders far and wide:
Now right, now left, he wandered, far and wide,
Throughout all France, and reached a bridge one day;
Beneath which ran an ample water's tide,
Of steep and broken banks: a turret gray
Was builded by the spacious river's side,
Discerned, from far and near, and every way.
What here he did I shall relate elsewhere,
Who first must make the Scottish prince my care.
The Scottish prince, to whom the poet refers in these last lines, is the
same Zerbino whom we have left pursuing the wretch who wounded the young
Medoro. Zerbino is young, handsome, and brave, and has married Isabella,
daughter of the king of Gallicia, whom he loves and by whom he is loved
with tender conjugal affection. Now his time has come to die. He, with
Isabella, arrives on the scene of Orlando's madness and finds the
scattered arms of Orlando, which he gathers together and hangs on a
tree, with an inscription telling whose they are, and forbidding all to
touch them. Just then up comes Mandricardo, emperor of Tartary,
accompanied by Doralice, his lady-love, and attempts to take Orlando's
sword Durindane. The two warriors fight, and Zerbino being fatally
wounded, Doralice, at the prayer of Isabella, prevails on Mandricardo to
end the battle: yet it is too late to save the life of Zerbino.
Neither the wars of Charlemagne nor the madness of Orlando gives a real
unity to the poem; the nearest thing to such a unity is to be found in
the story of Roger and Brandiamante, the former a pagan, the latter a
Christian, daughter of Aymon and sister to Rinaldo. They love each
other, seek each other, and after countless adventures by land and sea,
are united in marriage, thus founding the house of Este. It is with
Roger's conversion to Christianity and his marriage that the poem ends.
All the different heroes are gathered together before the walls of
Paris, Orlando's madness has been cured by Astolfo, who has made his
famous visit to the moon, where, in the paradise of fools, he recovers
the lost brain of his friend; Rinaldo, on his wedding day, slays
Rodamonte, the truculent and hitherto unconquerable enemy of the
Christians, and with his fall the war and the poem are ended.
Hard as it is to give a clear conception of the complicated adventures
told in the Orlando Furioso, it is perhaps still harder to give an idea
of its charm to these who have not read it. We are introduced at once
into a world of fancy, a sort of fairy-book for grown-up people. The
poem is not deeply impressive like the Divine Comedy, it has no elements
of tragedy. Ariosto did not aim at moral effect, but merely sought to
amuse his readers. Dante represents the deep, mystical religious
feeling of his times; Ariosto represents the worldliness of the
neo-paganism of the Renaissance. The asceticism of the Middle Ages now
gives way to intense delight in the life that now is. The artist and
poet sought to represent the pomp and circumstance of life, man in his
physical and intellectual power, woman in her beauty, nature in all its
picturesque variety, art in its magnificence. This was the ideal
followed by Ariosto; this was the ideal of the Italian Renaissance.
The great charm of Ariosto is his style. Here form reaches its highest
expression. He worked over and polished his verses unceasingly, yet so
natural are they that they seem to have been written spontaneously. The
Orlando is full of beautiful descriptions, of pathetic scenes,
alternating skilfully with humorous ones. Ariosto's humor, however, is
not coarse or grotesque, but refined and elegant. He does not caricature
the stories of chivalry, as Cervantes does in Don Quixote; but living in
a skeptical age he cannot take seriously the creatures of his own fancy,
and accompanies the prodigious deeds of his heroes with a smile of
good-natured irony.
We have already said that Ariosto was a man of good sense. From the
quiet of his own home he looked out upon the ruffled sea of life and
mused on what he saw. His reflections are contained in his satires; but
they likewise add a peculiar and original charm to the Orlando Furioso.
Among the parts most popular with the serious reader are the short
introductions to the various cantos, each containing some wise
reflection, some rule of life, or some kindly satire; this charm is
well known to the genuine lover of Thackeray.
SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
Progress of the revival of learning--Florence the center of the
movement--Poggio Bracciolini; Pico della Mirandola; Politian;
their services to scholarship--The chivalrous romance in
Italy--Boiardo's influence--Ariosto (1474-1533); Comedies and
Satires--His Orlando Furioso reflects the age.
1. Trace the development of the Renaissance from
Petrarch to Politian.
2. Name some of the more important writers of this
period.
3. Who was Lorenzo the Magnificent?
4. Who was the first to introduce chivalrous romances
into Italian literature?
5. Who was Boiardo? What were his services to Italian
literature?
6. Give a sketch of Ariosto's life.
7. Describe his character.
8. Give a list of his works.
9. What is the general theme of Orlando Furioso?
10. Did Ariosto invent the plot of his poem?
11. Tell the story of Cloridano and Medoro.
12. How does Orlando become insane?
13. Describe the death of Zerbino.
14. How does the poem end?
15. Was Ariosto a great poet?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The best English book on the Renaissance is that by J. A.
Symonds. For the romatic poets, Leigh Hunt's book, "Stories from
the Italian Poets," should be read. The first canto of Pulci's
Morgante Maggiore was translated by Byron and may be found in
his works. A complete translation of Orlando Furioso, translated
by Rose, is published in the Bohn Library.