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Updated: June 11, 2025
Ariosto's enchantress Alcina was the model for Tasso's better-known Armida, who provided both Lulli and Gluck with one of their most dramatic heroines, and Burney says, with some justice, that Handel's Alcina gave birth to all the Armidas and Rinaldos of modern times.
Ariosto's latest biographer, Panizzi, thinks he never served under any other leader than the cardinal; but I cannot help being of opinion with a former one, whom he quotes, that he once took arms under a captain of the name of Pio, probably a kinsman of his friend Alberto Pio, to whom he addresses a Latin poem.
It does not appear that he had any other children. Ariosto's renown is wholly founded on the Orlando Furioso, though he wrote satires, comedies, and a good deal of miscellaneous poetry, all occasionally exhibiting a master-hand.
"I," said Don Quixote, "have some little smattering of Italian, and I plume myself on singing some of Ariosto's stanzas; but tell me, senor I do not say this to test your ability, but merely out of curiosity have you ever met with the word pignatta in your book?" "Yes, often," said the author. "And how do you render that in Spanish?" "How should I render it," returned the author, "but by olla?"
On the other hand, Ariosto's evident sincerity is in striking contrast to the cold, intellectual, amatory verse of Lorenzo de' Medici, which was, in truth, but an æsthetic diversion for that brilliant prince.
The ceiling, supported by eight slender marble columns, was richly frescoed with scenes from Ariosto's poems, some of the figures being still warm with colour and instinct with life and on the walls were the fading remains of other pictures, the freshest among them being a laughing Cupid poised on a knot of honeysuckle, and shooting his arrow at random into the sky.
In his earlier musings at Penshurst the poet had purposed to surpass Ariosto, but the gaiety of Ariosto's song is utterly absent from his own. Not a ripple of laughter breaks the calm surface of Spenser's verse. He is habitually serious, and the seriousness of his poetic tone reflects the seriousness of his poetic purpose.
This is what makes that simile of Ariosto's so true and so justly celebrated: Natura lo fece e poi ruppe lo stampo. After Nature stamps a man of genius, she breaks the die. But there is always a limit to human capacity; and no one can be a great genius without having some decidedly weak side, it may even be, some intellectual narrowness.
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.
Would this have been true if one roof had sheltered them? Whatever the verdict may be in this matter, the fact remains that all of Ariosto's lyric poetry and many of the passages in the Orlando Furioso were inspired by his real love for some woman, and it was this living, burning passion which gives him his preeminence as a poet.
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