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Heroic Epic Poetry; Tasso. 5. Lyric Poetry; Bembo, Molza, Tarsia, V. Colonna. 6. Dramatic Poetry; Trissino, Rucellai; the Writers of Comedy. 7. Pastoral Drama and Didactic Poetry; Beccari, Sannazzaro, Tasso, Guarini, Rucellai, Alamanni. 8. Satirical Poetry, Novels, and Tales; Berni, Grazzini, Firenzuola, Bandello, and others. 9. History; Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Nardi, and others. 10.
This poet used much more license with his subject than Trissino; his plot is less simple and pathetic, but abounds in horror, and his style is florid and rhetorical. As the tragic poets of this century servilely imitated Sophocles and Euripides, the comic writers copied Plautus and Terence.
The various starts or attempts of these modern tragedians, among which the 'Sofonisba' of Trissino was the most celebrated, belong in the history of literature. The same may be said of genteel comedy, modelled on Plautus and Terence. Even Ariosto could do nothing of the first order in this style.
The Sophonisba of Trissino, which belongs to the beginning of the sixteenth century, is generally named as the first regular tragedy. This literary curiosity I cannot boast of having read, but from other sources I know the author to be a spiritless pedant.
The writers of that day, moreover, modelled themselves diligently on the Sophonisbe of Trissino, in good confidence of its classic form.
Trissino, a very great man in his day, and the would-be restorer of the ancient epic, had the face, in return for the poet's too honourable mention of him, to speak, in his own absurd verses, of "Ariosto, with that Furioso of his, which pleases the vulgar:" "L' Ariosto Con quel Furioso suo the piace al volgo." What has become of the swan Sperone?
Aretino says somewhere of an enchanted well, 'there dwell the sisters of the sibyl of Norcia and the aunt of the Fata Gloriana. And about the same time Trissino could still celebrate the place in his great epic with all the resources of poetry and allegory as the home of authentic prophecy.
For the versification of ancient history could only lead to the false tracks which were trodden by Petrarch in his 'Africa, written in Latin hexameters, and a hundred and fifty years later by Trissino in his 'Italy delivered from the Goths, composed in 'versi sciolti' a never-ending poem of faultless language and versification, which only makes us doubt whether this unlucky alliance has been more disastrous to history or to poetry.
Isabella herself had a beautiful voice, and sang with a sweetness and grace which charmed all hearers. The most accomplished poets of the Renaissance, Pietro Bembo and Niccolo da Correggio, Girolamo Casio and Antonio Tebaldeo, were proud to hear her sing their verses, and the Vicenza scholar Trissino, forestalling Waller in this, wrote a canzone addressed to "My Lady Isabella playing the lute."
Lucretia was very friendly with the noble Venetian, Trissino, Ariosto's not altogether successful rival in epic poetry. There are in existence five letters written by Trissino to Lucretia in her last years. Ferrara's pride, however, was Ariosto, and Lucretia knew him when he was at the zenith of his fame.
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