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Updated: June 14, 2025
This resuscitation of the Helen of antiquity, under a more seducing form, was an invention of Boiardo's; so was the subjection of Charles's hero Orlando to the passion of love; so, besides the heroine and her name, was that of other interesting characters with beautiful names, which afterwards figured in Ariosto.
A good idea, however, of one of the phases of Berni's humour may be obtained from the same gentleman's abridgment of the Animali Parlanti of Casti, in which he has introduced a translation of the Tuscan's description of himself and of his way of life, out of his additions to Boiardo's poem.
Let the reader who is rich in such possessions look upon Berni's as one of his town mansions, erected in the park-like neighbourhood of some metropolis; and Boiardo's as the ancient country original of it, embosomed in the woods afar off, and beautiful as the Enchanted Castle of Claude "Lone sitting by the shores of old romance."
The "Circe," for example, of the Borghese Palace, is worthy to rank with the best Renaissance work. It is perfectly original, not even suggesting the influence of Venice by its deep and lustrous hues. No painting is more fit to illustrate the "Orlando Innamorato." Just so, we feel in looking at it, did Dragontina show herself to Boiardo's fancy.
Luigi Pulci obviously imitates the Improvisatori in his 'Morgante, and both his poetry and Boiardo's are in part, at least, a half-conscious parody of the chivalrous poetry of the Middle Ages. Under the name of Limerno Pitocco, he composed the 'Orlandino, in which chivalry appears only as a ludicrous setting for a crowd of modern figures and ideas.
Also, I resent his admirable rhetorical flourishes about his patrons, his Ercoles, Ippolitos, and Isabellas they ring false, dreadfully false and studied; and Boiardo's quickly despatched friendly greeting of his friends, his courteous knights and gentle ladies, pleases me much better.
During the lives of Pulci and Boiardo, the fierce passions and severe ethics of Dante had been gradually giving way to a gentler and laxer state of opinion before the progress of luxury; and though Boiardo's enamoured Paladin retains a kind of virtue not common in any age to the heroes of warfare, the lord of Scandiano, who appears to have recited his poem, sometimes to his vassals and sometimes to the ducal circle at court, intimates a smiling suspicion that such a virtue would be considered a little rude and obsolete by his hearers.
Perhaps the letters went counter to some of the good Jesuit's theology. Boiardo's prose translations from the authors of antiquity are so scarce, that Mr. Panizzi himself, a learned and miscellaneous reader, says he never saw them.
Of the editions of 1543, of Boiardo's "Innamorato" only one other copy is known, that in the Royal Library at Stuttgart. The 1527 edition of the "Orlando Furioso" was unknown until 1821, when Count Nilzi described the copy in his collection. Of the "Gigante Moronte", Wellesley has an absolutely unique copy.
Panizzi calls Doni "a barefaced impostor;" and says, that as the work is mentioned by nobody else, we may be "certain that it never existed," and that the title was "a forgery of the impudent priest." Nothing else of Boiardo's writing is known to exist, but a collection of official letters in the archives of Modena, which, according to Tiraboschi, are of no great importance.
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