Lodovico Ariosto Biography

Dromo's Den

ARIOSTO, Lodovico (1474-1533). One of the most celebrated of Italian poets, the author of the Orlando Furioso, and, with Boiardo and Tasso, one of the trio who showed Italy how the material of the old chivalric romances might be remodeled and endowed with classic form and epic dignity. He was born Sept. 8, 1474, at Reggio, where his father was then military governor. Like Petrarch and Boccaccio before him, he was destined by his father for the law, but abandoned it after five years of half-hearted study. His father's early death (1500) transferred to Ariosto's shoulders the burden of a large family, with but a scanty inheritance; and in 1503 he was glad of the chance offered him to enter the service of Ippolito, the Cardinal d'Este, brother of the Duke of Ferrara. By this time he had already acquired a reputation for his verses, in both Latin and Italian; but his new position was far from favorable to poetic inspiration. The Cardinal, a rough, coarse-natured man, quite destitute of poetic feeling, kept Ariosto actively employed upon diplomatic errands to Rome or upon distant embassies, and on one occasion at least, sent him into active service against the Venetians. It was, however, during the 10 years that Ariosto spent in his service that the Orlando Furioso was written, and it was finished in the latter part of 1515 and published at Ferrara, 1516, in 40 cantos. Ostensibly it was a continuation of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato; practically, it was a glorification of the House of Este, having for its real hero Ruggiero, the mythical founder of that house. In payment for this rather obvious flattery, the Cardinal is said to have rewarded him with a golden chain and the query, "Where had he got that rubbish?" and the following year, having incurred his patron's displeasure by a refusal to accompany him to Hungary, Ariosto passed into the service of his brother, the Duke of Ferrara. The Duke, scarcely more munificent than the Cardinal, bestowed upon him the governorship of the wild mountain district of Garfagnana (1522), overrun with bandits, which, with all his endeavors, he could not succeed in reducing to order. He was finally recalled by the Duke in 1525 and spent his remaining years in Ferrara, nominally in his patron's service, but in reality enjoying what he prized most highly abundant leisure for prosecuting his studies, in the modest home which the Latin inscription over the door proudly states was bought from his own savings. This house is still carefully preserved by the authorities of Ferrara. He died in that city, June 6, 1533, and was buried there in the church of San Benedetto.

The manner in which the Orlando Furioso is engrafted upon Boiardo's earlier poem has been aptly compared to the connection between the Iliad of Homer and the Æneid of Vergil. Boiardo's poem was based upon the chivalric cycle which dealt with the wars between Charlemagne and the Saracens, confounded with those of Charles Martel, in which Orlando, or Roland, stood forward as champion of Christendom. Orlando is Boiardo's hero, and falls in love with Angelica, a clever and beautiful Oriental princess sent by the Paynim to sow discord among the Christian knights. The story, left unfinished by Boiardo, is taken up by Ariosto, who makes Angelica fall in love with an obscure young squire; whereupon Orlando becomes insane. It is difficult, however, to disentangle the central argument of this poem from the mass of irrevelant episodes in which it is involved. The Orlando Furioso has long been numbered among the world's greatest epics, but it is utterly lacking in epic unity, and probably its nearest parallel is that pointed out by Richard Garnett--Ovid's Metamorphoses. In so far as it has a central theme at all, it is not the adventures of the knight who has given it his name, but Ruggiero's conversion from paganism, his union with Bradamant, and the incidental exaltation of the House of Este. Ariosto also left comedies, satires, sonnets, and a number of Latin poems: There are also extensive fragments of another epic, Rinaldo Ardito, which are attributed to him; but it is a question whether they are not rather the work of his son Virginio.

The New International Encyclopaedia Vol. II (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 102-103.