Pignotti and Bertola were good fabulists, and Bertola enjoyed the further distinction of being the first to introduce German Literature into Italy.
Some of Ludovico Savioli's poems are musical in diction, but no poet of the age revels more in the threadbare mythology of poetasters.
Gian Carlo Passeroni wrote a burlesque Life of Cicero in one hundred and one Cantos and in Ottava Rima, full of comic digressions, by no means without wit and sprightliness, but quite spoilt by the preposterous length to which the poem is spun out. His career bears much similarity to that of Parini. Like the greater poet, he was a priest, he lived in Milan, and he suffered many privations owing to poverty. He seems to have carried not only disinterestedness, but utter indifference to his affairs, to a culpable extent.
The Abbe Casti was another poet who spoilt his wit by his prolixity. He wrote the Animali Parlanti and a collection of stories in verse, less poetical and more indelicate than the prose of Boccaccio, and finally a bitter satire on Catherine the Second of Russia. He had wit in abundance and a coarse and ready style. His feuds with rival poets were frequent and bitter, and Parini wrote some stinging verses against him. In spite of his disreputable character he was nominated by the Court of Vienna "Poeta Cesareo" after Metastasio's death, and the appointment caused universal surprise and reprobation. After Casti the post was discontinued. He died in Paris in 1503.
Giovanni Fantoni was an elegant, but somewhat conventional, imitator of Horace. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, he nearly lost his reason from excessive zeal for liberty, and his advanced opinions brought down upon him many persecutions.
Lorenzo Mascheroni, a mathematician and a man of science, is remarkable for a pleasing poem called L'Invito a Lesbia Cidonia. A lady of Bergamo, the Countess Paolina Secco Suardo Grismondi, was known in the Arcadian Academy as "Lesbia Cidonia." She was invited to visit Rome when Mascheroni wished her to come to Pavia where he was living, and he tried to induce her to do so by writing his poem full of descriptions of the beauties of Pavia and of the treasures of its Museum. This pleasing and original poem was much admired in its day. Mascheroni wrote other poems in Italian and Latin, but nothing to equal this little masterpiece. He was born in 1750 at Castagnetta, a small village near Bergamo, and died in 1800 in Paris, whither he had retired during the political storms that convulsed his country.
In reviewing the poetry of the Eighteenth Century the most striking fact is the remarkable advance in the art of writing blank verse. Spolverini, Parini and Alfieri produced works in that metre more masterly than those of former ages. These poets know how to vary their cadences, how to sustain the melody, how to produce an impressive close; and if Spolverini is at times a trifle prolix and Parini a trifle heavy, Alfieri skilfully Avoids both faults, and as far as rhythm is concerned, his verse is absolutely perfect; but only his blank verse; his rhymes, like those of Parini, are vastly inferior and not nearly so gratifying to the ear.
[1] The work was dedicated to Elizabeth Farnese, widow of Philip V of Spain. The fact of her accepting the dedication must have given it some importance in the eyes of the world. Ambrosoli is my authority for its cold reception. A copy of the second edition, published 1764, is in my possession. The editor says the poem was received with universal admiration, but perhaps his motive was to induce the public by that statement to buy his edition. Probably the fact of the author's death, as is so often the case, drew attention to his poem.