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Rh epic was exhausted by his time, and he wisely found another way of rivalling Ariosto. The Orlandino and the Ricciardetto belong rather to the class of the mock heroic, to be treated hereafter. The names of a few of the most remarkable bona-fide attempts at chivalric poetry must suffice: the Guerino il Meschino of Tullia d'Aragona, the Ogier the Dane of Cassiodoro Narni, the Death of Ruggiero of Giambatista Pescatore, the Triumphs of Charlemagne of Francesco de' Lodovici, the First Exploits of Orlando of Lodovico Dolce, and the Angelica Innamorata of Vincenzo Brusantini.

Apart from the poems of the chivalric cycles, Italy witnessed but few attempts at epic in the first half of the sixteenth century. Of the author of one of these, however, it might be said, Magnis excidit ausis. was born of a noble family at Vicenza in 1478. He repaired the defects of a neglected education with singular industry, and endeared himself to the two Medici Popes, Leo and Clement, who entrusted him with important diplomatic missions. His most successful poetical work, the tragedy of Sophonisba (1515), brought him great fame, and actually does mark an era in the history of the drama. He wrote much on grammar, but could effect only one reform, the distinction between i and j and u and v. After his retirement from diplomacy Trissino lived many years among his fellow-citizens, wealthy and honoured; but his later years were embittered by a painful and disastrous lawsuit with his son by his first marriage. He died in 1549.

Trissino had commenced in 1525 the composition of his epic. The Deliverance of Italy from the Goths, which was published in 1547 and 1548. It has some