"A mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease,"
delighted to mingle and multiply. Enough, in addition to the polished sonnet, to name noble canzoni, sublime odes, and tender elegies. But the absence of ballad poetry, with its wide-circling echoes of long antecedent events and feelings, is remarkable, and has been imputed to an early addiction of the nation to prosaic habits of trade. This solution is, however, little satisfactory in itself, and is equally at variance with the genius and the language of the people. Perhaps it would be more just to assign a diametrically opposite cause, and to seek in their vivid imaginations, and in the exuberant facility of their melodious tongue, that universality of versification which tended to depreciate its quality, or, at all events, to diminish the estimation bestowed even on their most popular compositions. It is accordingly in nations among whom poetry is a rare gift, and whose idiom can embody it in terse and simple diction, that we find those lyrics which, possessing a traditional popularity, are at once the germ and index of national sentiment.[*156] We seek in vain for such among the recognised literature of Italy; and though the dulcet chants of the Venetian gondolier, and the monotonous lazzaroni ditties of Naples, may be deemed of that class, their infinite and ever-changing variety appears to divest them of the historic charm that attaches to the chivalric redondillas of Spain, and to the pensive minstrelsy of our fatherland.
In poetry alone did the age of the della Rovere excel that of the Montefeltri, and among the great names whom it was their pride to shelter were Ariosto and Tasso, the only ones worthy to rival those of the bards of Hell and of Love.
SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF ARIOSTO
After the picture by Titian in the National Gallery
Ludovico Ariosto[*157] was born of noble parentage at Reggio, in 1474, and, after a precocious struggle against the uncongenial legal career for which he was intended, was left by his father to follow the bent of his genius in favour of general literature.[*158] From an early age he had composed dramas on Thisbe and similar themes, and had secretly drilled his brothers and sisters to perform them; but when about seventeen, his youthful inclination was gratified by accompanying Duke Ercole I. to Pavia and Milan, for diversion, and to enact certain comedies. These boyish efforts have not been preserved, but the Cassaria and Suppositi, composed in 1494, engraft upon classic models the licentious speech of his age. Though well-born, he had the double misfortune to require a patron, and to find an ungrateful one in Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, whose ferocious character and lax morals exceeded even the ordinary licence then permitted to members of the Sacred College, and whose taste for literature, or perhaps emulation of a prevailing fashion, led him to favour men of genius. The services of Ariosto were invoked, as a soldier and diplomatist, when Ferrara was exposed to imminent danger in the wars following the League of Cambray. As ambassador to Julius II. in 1512, he braved perils greater perhaps than those of the field; but his fine temper and knowledge of the world ensured his safety, and bespoke the regard even of that domineering Pontiff, whose threats mellowed into favours before his conciliatory bearing.
The time at which he first visited Urbino is uncertain; but in 1515, when the designs of Leo X. upon that duchy and Ferrara, the only Romagnese principalities which still withstood the grasping policy of the papacy, had given rise to anxieties in the families of d'Este and della Rovere, the Cardinal repaired to Francesco Maria I., in order to concert measures for their common safety. Ariosto accompanied him on this journey, and, having been detained at the Furlo pass by an attack of fever, which in his eighth Capitulo he mentions as dangerous, he repaired to recruit his health at Urbino, whilst Ippolito proceeded to Rome. The greeting which met our poet at that lettered court partook of the discriminating hospitality which genius could ever there command; and though his own poetical reputation was as yet but dawning, his intimacy with Guido Posthumo of Pesaro was probably a claim in his behalf to special distinction, which the publication of his Orlando Furioso, before the end of that year, firmly established. On proceeding to Rome, the favour bestowed upon him at the Vatican was not such as either to satisfy his just anticipations, or to do credit to the Pontiff's discernment. In his third and seventh Satires, Ariosto comments upon the long and intimate friendship of their former years, when the Cardinal de' Medici had proffered him a fraternal partiality, and vows that never again will he rely on other men's promises, postponed from ides to calends, and from calends to ides. The reception he at first met with might well give confidence to his hopes; for on his presentation Leo stooped forward to press his hand, saluting him on both cheeks. But, as the Venetian envoy caustically observed, his Holiness promised largely, but performed not. All that followed this flattering accolade was a privilege of copyright, not even gratuitously issued; and as those substantial benefits, which his merits deserved and his position required, were vainly expected, the poet quitted Rome "with humbled crest," a disappointed man. Yet he was of too kind a nature to harbour malice, as well as of a temper too easy for courtly struggles. He returned to the quiet of his native state, content to seek some respectable employment, and avowing his indifference to scenes of wider or more varied ambition.