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ARI diligently to the study of the classical authors. Plautus and Terence were his first favourites, and after their example he wrote two comedies. A story is told of his father exhibiting considerable violence in some argument with him: the son was silent, but in discussion with his brother afterwards, he mentioned circumstances that showed the father's anger had arisen from his misconception of facts that could be at once explained. "And why did you not say so, and vindicate yourself?" said the brother. "The truth is," said Lodovico, "I was thinking only of a passage in my play of 'Cassaria,' in which an old man quarrels with his son; and I was watching my father for the purpose of learning how I might increase the effect of the scene." His father died when Lodovico was twenty-four years of age, and he had to struggle with the management of a small and encumbered property, being the eldest of ten children, whom, by great personal sacrifices, he maintained and portioned. Between this time and his thirty-fifth year, he wrote most of his smaller poems in Italian and Latin, and by means of them became known to the cardinal, Ippolito d'Este, who took him into his service, and employed him in several important affairs, particularly with Pope Giulio the second, all of which he conducted with skill and prudence. He now conceived the idea of writing his poem of "Orlando Furioso," by which he looked forward to surpass all those who had gone before him. This work occupied him over ten years, in the midst of all kinds of distractions and interruptions. He at length commenced the publication in 1515, and completed it the year following, in forty cantos. This poem was received with almost universal favour; one voice alone was heard in condemnation, that of the Cardinal Ippolito, who had never treated Ariosto according to his deserts. When Ariosto brought him a copy of the poem, the cardinal asked, "Where could you have found all those tomfooleries?" The cardinal, indeed, appears to have treated the poet with singular unkindness; and when going to Hungary, in 1517, whither the delicate health of Ariosto prevented his attending him, the cardinal left him in great distress. In this extremity he was fortunately relieved by Alfonso, duke of Ferrara, who made him one of his gentlemen, and, though he admitted him into terms of great familiarity, he does not appear to have done better for him than his former master. A pension was given him, charged on the produce of a certain impost; the impost was subsequently abolished, and with it went, of course, the pension, leaving the poet to struggle on as best he could. A cousin of the poet's. Count Rinaldo Ariosto, died in 1518, and Lodovico and his brothers claimed the inheritance as next of kin. He was opposed by a natural son of the deceased, and by the ducal chamber, which insisted that the property escheated to the duke. The case was decided against the poet; he appealed, and the litigation lasted for his life, and was still undetermined at the time of his death. While in office, Ariosto was sent once or twice to Florence and Urbino, and in 1522 he was appointed governor of the wild district of Garagnana, situated in the Apennines, and the scene of constant robberies and disturbances. Here he remained for three years, and seems, by his firmness, justice, and frank and kind demeanour, to have succeeded in restoring the country to a tolerable state of order; and romantic stories are told by his Italian biographers, of the respect in which he was held by the bandits of the place: one, in particular, details how he owed his life to the admiration of these lawless people for his poetry. In 1523 he declined the office of ducal ambassador to Pope Clement the seventh, and the following year resigned his government, returned to Ferrara, and resumed his attendance at court, where he became acquainted with Ercole Bentivoglio, the duke's nephew, and a poet of some consideration. The duke was fond of theatrical amusements, and appointed Ariosto director of the splendid theatre which he had built; Ariosto's were, if not the first, among the first Italian comedies in verse. The principal persons about the court acted them. Riccoboni, in his history of the Italian theatre, says that Ariosto's talent for the humorous is equally displayed in his dramatic works as in his great narrative poem. Previously to this, the poet had divided amongst his brothers the old ancestral mansion of the Ariosti, and purchased some ground and a small house, which he enlarged, and here, with his two unmarried sisters, he passed the remainder of his life. The house is still standing, having been purchased and repaired by the community of Ferrara. When asked how it was that he who had described such magnificent palaces in the Orlando, was contented to build so simple a house for himself, he replied, "Because one can put words together with more speed and ease than stones." Alfonso took the poet with him to Bologna in 1530, on the occasion of his meeting the Emperor Charles the fifth, and also to their subsequent meeting at Mantua, two years afterwards. On this latter occasion, Ariosto presented to the emperor a last revised edition of the Orlando, in which a glowing panegyric upon Charles was introduced, and, in consequence, he received a diploma as laureate, signed by the emperor himself. The fact of his having been publicly crowned by the emperor at Mantua wants confirmation, and is discredited by the best authorities. In September, 1531, Ariosto was sent on a mission to Alfonso d'Avalos, who had entered Mantua at the head of an imperial force, with designs, as was supposed, unfriendly to the duke of Ferrara. In this the poet was successful. Alfonso being a friend of literature, was charmed with Ariosto, treated him with distinction and courtesy, and conferred a pension of one hundred golden ducats upon him. Ariosto now applied himself to the preparation of a new edition of the "Orlando Furioso," which was extended to forty-six cantos, completed in the latter end of 1532, and published by Francesco del Rosso. The labour which he bestowed on the correction of this work was so great, that it is believed to have accelerated the fatal malady with which he was shortly afterwards attacked. His health gradually declined, and at last recovery was hopeless. When death approached, he met it with fortitude and calmness, declaring to those who stood round his bed that he died contented, especially if it were true that human souls after death recognize and commune with each other in another world. He died on the 6th of June, 1553, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and was buried without display in the church of St. Benedetto. Forty years afterwards, Agostino Mosti, who had been his pupil, erected a monument to his memory in the new church of St. Benedetto, to which he transferred the remains of the poet. The last years of Ariosto's life appear to have been happy. He was fond of gardening, and treated his trees much as he did his verses, but with less beneficial results, for while his constant pruning and care improved the latter, they generally destroyed the former. Whether Ariosto was married or not remains undetermined. The lady with whom he lived for many years, and whose name occurs in his poems, was, it may be presumed on good grounds, really his wife; but as he held a benefice which could not be filled by a married man, he may on that account have been withheld from acknowledging this relationship. He had two sons, Virginio and Gabriello. Ariosto's personal appearance is thus accurately described by Sir John Harrington:—"Tall of person, of complexion melancholy, given much to study and musing, and would therewith sometimes forget himself; he was of colour like an olive, somewhat tawny in his face, but fair-skinned otherwise; his hair was black, but he quickly grew bald; his forehead was large; his eyebrows thin; his eye a little hollow, but very full of life, and very black; his nose was large and hooked (as they say the kings of Persia were); his teeth were white; his cheeks wan; his beard thin; his neck well-proportioned; his shoulders square and well made, but stooping, as almost all that look much on books in their youth are inclined to be; his hand somewhat dry; and a little bow-legged. His counterfeit was taken by Titian, that excellent drawer, so well to the life, that a man would think it were alive." Lord Byron confirms this praise of Titian's picture by saying, "It is the portrait of poetry, and the poetry of portraits." It may safely be asserted that, in his peculiar walk, no poet has ever surpassed, if any has equalled, Ariosto. Comparisons have frequently been instituted between him and Tasso, but they present few points of similarity, and in all such Ariosto has the advantage. In one respect, too, Ariosto is superior to Tasso. The former is always easy and felicitous in his style, while the latter is often apparently laboured and difficult. This results from the fact that Ariosto's corrections were incessant, Tasso's, on the contrary, rare. No poet has blended with so much skill the serious and the amusing, the graceful and the terrific, the sublime and the familiar. No one has brought forward so great a number of personages and such a variety of diverse actions, which all, nevertheless, conduce harmoniously to the one end. No one is more poetical in his style, more varied in his tableaux, more rich in his descriptions, more faithful in his portraiture of characters and manners, more truthful, more animated, more lifelike. In addition to several satires which are equal to any in the