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 Italian
poet, remembered primarily for his ORLANDO FURIOSO, published in
its final version in 1532. Ariosto's work was the most celebrated
narrative poem of the Italian high Renaissance, and the first example
of modern poetry to provoke widespread critical controversy.
Ariosto was born in Reggio Emilia, as the son of Count Niccolò
Ariosto. At the age of then his family moved to Ferrera, where he
studied law from 1489 to1494. There he also started to study Latin
and Greek language and literature. When his father died in 1500,
Ariosto assumed for some years the management of family estates
as the eldest of 10 children. In 1502 he became commander of the
fort of Canossa, and the next year he entered the service of Cardinal
Ippolito d'Este. In 1513 Ariosto met Alessandra Benucci. After the
death of her husband, Tito Strozzi, she became Ariosto's mistress.
Because the family had settled comfortably in Ferrara, Ariosto
refused to accompany Cardinal d'Este to Hungary, and entered the
service of Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, the Cardinal's brother. In
1522 he was sent to govern the Garfagnana region in the wildest
part of the Apuan Alps. He returned after three years from the bandit-ridden
post to Ferrara.
 In
about 1505 Ariosto began writing Orlando Furioso. The poem
was a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato.
Its first edition appeared in Venice in 1516 and was later revised
in 1521 and 1532. The main character, Orlando, goes mad (furioso)
because his love for the beautiful Angelica is not returned. Other
themes are the war between Christians and Saracens, and the secondary
love story of Ruggiero and Bradamante. Orlando Furioso presented
a rich variety of characters, mixed romance, epic, and lyrical poetry,
and made fun of outmoded chivalric manners. Later the poem had a
profound influence on such poets as Tasso, Spenser, and Lope de
Vega. It also fascinated artists, and in the mid-1700s G.B. Tiepolo
painted in Villa Valmarana in Vicenza frescoes illustrating its
scenes.
Ariosto also wrote seven satires, beginning in 1514, and five comedies.
As a member of a group organized to produce plays by Plautus and
Terrence at the Este court of Ferrara, he became especially familiar
with their approaches to comedy, and their work later became the
model for his own dramas. In LA CASSARIA (The Coffer, prose version
in 1508, verse version in 1531) two servants succeed in arranging
desirable marriages for their masters. IL SUPPOSITI (The Pretenders,
prose version 1509, verse version 1528/31) was based on Terence's
The Eunuch and Plautus's The Captives. Shakespeare used parts of
the work in his play The Taming of the Shrew. IL NEGROMANTE
(The Necromancer, 1520), centred on a marriage kept secret,
GLI STUDENTI (The Students, 1519), was an unfinished comedy of frustrated
love, and LA LENA (Lena, 1528) was based on the story of Peronella
in Boccaccio's Decameron.
Around 1527 Ariosto secretly married the widow Alessandra Benucci,
and spent the last part of his life revising and enlarging Orlando
Furioso. Ariosto died in Ferrara on July 6, 1533.
Degli uomini son vari gli appetiti;
a chi piace la chierca a chi la spada,
a chi la patria, a chi gli strani liti.
Che vuole andare a torno, a torno vada;
vegga Inghilterra, Ongheria, Francia e Spagna;
a me piace abitar la mia contrada.
(from Mal può dirar il rosignuolo in gabbia)
For further reading: King of the Court Poets: A Study
of the Work, Life and Times of Lodovico Ariosto by E.G. Gardner
(1906, new edition in 1982); Ariosto, Shakespeare, and Corneille
by B. Croce (1920); Vita di Ludovico Ariosto ricostruita su nuovi
documenti by M. Catalano (1931); Sul teatro dell' Ariosto by C.
Grabher (1946); Ludovico Ariosto by R. Griffin (1974); Ludovico
Ariosto: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism, 1956-1980 by
Robert J. Rodini, Salvatore di Maria (1984); Ariosto's Bitter
Harmony by Albert Russell Ascoli (1987) The Poetics of Ariosto
by Marianne G. Shapiro (1988); The Orlando Legend in Nineteenth-Century
French Literature by D.A. Kress (1996); Orlando Furioso: A Stoic
Comedy by Clare Carroll (1997)
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