Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/228

210 of the philologist for its idiomatic Tuscan, is remarkable for embalming much local folk-lore, and so many local phrases as to be shorter than its own glossary.

Two more recent examples of the mock-heroic epic may be included here to complete the subject. The Ricciardetto of, published under the pseudonym of Carteromaco, has received much merited and more unmerited praise. The author (1670–1730) was a prelate of the Roman court, and so great a favourite of Pope Clement XII. that he is said to have died from mortification at having displeased his patron by neglecting to ask for a vacant appointment. His poem burlesques the chivalric epics of Ariosto and others, not with the refined raillery of a Berni, but in a style of broad, coarse buffoonery. It was published after his death, when his friends sought to extenuate its unclerical character by alleging that it had been undertaken for a wager, composed in spare intervals of time, and never designed for publication. All these statements seem to be groundless. It has considerable merit as a burlesque, and some passages indicate a talent for serious poetry which might have developed into something considerable; in the main, however, the ability displayed is of a low though drastic strain. The best idea is that of making the Saracen champion Ferafi turn hermit, a character which he supports less in the fashion of St. Jerome than of Friar Tuck. It seems an instance of apparent injustice in prevalent literary opinion that the Ricciardetto should be so widely known, while no less a poem than Leopardi's Supplement (Paralipomeni) to Homer's Battle of the Frogs and the Mice is hardly mentioned. The wonder, however, is not so great as it seems. Forteguerri wrote