446 NATIONAL POETRY. 



circulation throughout Europe. The renaissance of ancient literature in Italy 

 during the fifteenth century told much in favour of their efforts to apply the 

 Latin language to modern subjects. Thus Sannazar (Fig. 346), surnamed 

 the Christian Virgil, excited more enthusiasm with his poems, " De Partu 

 Virginia " and " Lamentatio de Morte Christi," than with his beautiful poems 

 written in Italian. In fact, there was throughout the whole of learned 

 Europe, from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, a Latin poetry con- 

 sisting of a mass of works of the most varied kind, which were welcomed and 

 praised, especially by the most highly educated. 



Next we have the old romances of chivalry, appearing in the shape of 

 poems in ottava rima ; the romance of " King Arthur of Brittany and the 

 Knights of the Round Table," " Charlemagne and his Twelve Peers." Here we 

 have the Italian epode, a mixture of grave and gay. Pulci writes his 

 "Morgante Maggiore," the hero of which is a great jester; Bello, called the 

 Blind Man of Ferrara, writes his " Mambriano," who pursues Renaud de 

 Montauban amidst a series of the most fanciful and burlesque adventures. 

 Boiardo also seeks for inspiration in the Chronicle of Turpin, and depicts 

 the court of Charlemagne in his " Orlando Innamorato," which would be a 

 masterpiece of the poet's style, were it not so curt and so affected. Ludovico 

 Ariosto, called the Ariosto (Fig. 347), born at Reggio in 1474, would not 

 undertake to rewrite the epic poem of Boiardo, but he continued it with the 

 " Orlando Furioso," one of the most remarkable productions of picturesque 

 poetry, and far before the " Orlando Innamorato." Ariosto's poem combines 

 every charm variety of imagination, descriptive power, grace and elegance 

 of style, and powerful dramatic incident. Like Homer, Ariosto was surnamed 

 the Divine, and his poem remains the type of the Romanic epode, as the 

 Iliad was the masterpiece of the heroic epode. 



Ariosto, in his " Capitoli Amorosi " and his many light pieces of poetry, 

 preserved his superiority over his numerous imitators, none of wfiom ventured 

 to compete with him in epic poetry. Berni rewrote the " Orlando Inna- 

 morato," and he had perfected the burlesque mode of composition, and given 

 his name to what was called Hcniesqtte poetry. Yet Petrarch had more than 

 a hundred imitators, none of whom could come up or near to their model. 

 Didactic poetry spent itself in pale imitations of Virgil and of Juvenal, and 

 the poem of the " Bees " is a literal translation of the fourth book of the 

 Georgics, of which Alamainii presented a mere counterfeit in the " Colti- 



