Ariosto, LUDOVICO, one of the greatest of Italian poets, was born at Reggio, September 8, 1474, being the eldest son of the military governor of that city. He was bred to the law, but abandoned it for poetry. However, at an early period of life, he was compelled to exert himself for the support of a large family, left as a burden on him at the death of his father. His imaginative powers were developed in early life. In 1503, after he had written two comedies, with several lyrical poems in Latin and Italian, he was introduced to the court of the Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, who employed him in many negotiations, but was extremely niggardly in his rewards. Here, in Ferrara, in the space of about ten years, Ariosto produced his great poem, Orlando Furioso, which was published in that city in 1516, in forty cantos. After the death of the cardinal, the duke, his brother, invited the poet to his service, and acted to him with comparative kindness and liberality. In 1521 a second edition of his poems was published, the Orlando Furioso being still in forty cantos. Shortly after, he was commissioned by the duke to suppress an insurrection which had broken out in the wild mountain-district of Garfagnana; a task which seems more like a punishment than a mark of honour. Ariosto, however, succeeded in this arduous undertaking; and after remaining three years governor of the province, he returned to Ferrara, where he lived comfortably, nominally in the service of his patron, but in reality enjoying what he highly prized—an abundant leisure for prosecuting his studies. It was at this time that he composed his comedies, and gave the finishing touch to his Orlando. At length, in 1532, that poem made its appearance in a third edition, enlarged to its present dimensions of forty-six cantos. He now became seriously ill of a painful internal distemper, of which, after a few months of suffering, he died on 6th June 1533, in his 59th year. He was buried in the church of San Benedetto, at Ferrara, where a magnificent monument marks his resting-place. Ariosto is described in the Latin verses of his brother Gabrielle as a man of noble personal appearance and amiable character. His Orlando Furioso is a romantic, imaginative epic, marked by great vivacity, playfulness of fancy, and ingenuity in the linking together of the several episodes. It takes its name and its theme from a chivalrous romantic poem by Boiardo (q.v.), the Orlando Innamorato. That poem treats of the wars between Charlemagne and the Saracens, confounded as they were by tradition with those of Charles Martel, wherein Orlando, or Roland (q.v.), stood forward as the champion of Christendom. Orlando is the hero of Boiardo's piece, and falls in love with Angelica, a clever and beautiful oriental princess, sent by the Paynim to sow discord among the knights of the Christian armies. The story being left unfinished in the Orlando Innamorato, is taken up by Ariosto, who makes the lady fall in love with an obscure squire Medoro, on which Orlando gets frenzied, and long continues in a state of insanity. Besides his great work, Ariosto wrote comedies, satires, sonnets, and a number of Latin poems. Of these, the sonnets alone show signs of the genius of Ariosto. His Latin poems are mediocre indeed, and his comedies, besides lacking interest, are disfigured by repeated immoral and licentious passages. Only the elegance of the diction, in which Ariosto always excels, and the spirited dialogue, serve to stamp their origin. In 1845 there was discovered the mutilated manuscript of a second epic, Rinaldo Ardito, describing, like the Orlando, the battles of Charlemagne and his paladins. It was ascribed to Ariosto, but its genuineness is at least doubtful. Of the Orlando there are many English translations: by Harrington (1607 and 1634), Croker
(1755), Huggins (1757), Hoole (1783), and Stewart Rose (1823). In the last only is there to be found a fair representation of the feeling and spirit of the original. One of Ariosto's comedies had been rendered into English by Gascoigne as early as the year 1566. A list of the hundred and more editions of the Orlando, and of the various lives of its author, will be found in Ferrazzi's Bibliografia Ariostesca (Bassano, 1881).