Start Reading Life And Genius Of Ariosto (Classic Reprint) Narrated By J. Shield Nicholson Available In Readable Copy

on the Internet Archive, published, Weirdly Nicholson seems to have been a professor of political economy who just happened to have been an aficionado of Ariosto, A bit stilted but pretty good so far, There's a decent anecdote about Luodovico Ariosto's Dad's service to the House of Este, and how his big mission was to poison a rival.
He went to the guy's estate and bribed the seneschal into doing the deed, but the guy had a fit of giddiness at an inopportune moment and confessed.
Buddy was hanged and Ariosto Senior escaped just in the nick of time,

Focuses more on the intrigues of the d'Estes than Ariosto in some parts, but that's maybe to be expected given that he served a the family's cardinal and then his older brother the duke for much of his life, just as his father had.


Available free here as a pdf: sitelink us. archive. orgite


Other good anecdotes:


His boss the cardinal: Ippolito was born in,
years after Ariosto, and the evil that he did and
much of it lived after him was compressed into a
life of less than fortytwo years.
He died of overeating
shellfish in, As third son he was
destined from his birth for the Church, and at the
age of nine he was made Archbishop of Ezstergom
in Hungary.
Before he was fifteen he was created
a Cardinal at the same time as Cesare Borgia,
In the course of time he became Archbishop of
Milan and Bishop of Ferrara, not to mention other
lucrative spoils.
We have the best of evidence in
letters from his own father that he was quite unfitted
for the Church, .
This Giulio was the natural son of the pious
Ercole, and had been recognised by his father though
born under the shelter of the name of a lesser noble.

It fell out that there came to Ferrara in the train of
Lucrezia Borgia, when she married Alfonso,
another beautiful Borgia named Angela.
This lady
in the first year of Alfonso's reignattracted
the love of both Giulio and Ippolitofor the latter paid not even an outward observance to his vows of
chastity.
Angela gave the preference to Giulio, and
she is reported to have said to the Cardinal in response to a passionate declaration that " your brother's eyes are worth more than the whole of
your person.
'
This spretae iniuria formae was more
than Ippolito could bear, He commanded his
servants to lie in wait for Giulio on a hunting
excursion, and to pierce his beautiful eyes with
rapiers.
The eyes were pierced, though by the
surgical skill of the time eventually the sight of one
eye was partially restored.
The deed done, the
Cardinal himself brought the news to Alfonso that
Giulio had been blinded by unknown hands, The
Duke in a fury of passion ordered the fullest investigation,
But

the Cardinal had taken the precaution
of at once sending the malefactors to Venice, In the
end no one was punished, and in spite of the
complicity of Ippolito being well known, in less than
two months a reconciliation was effected and he
returned to Ferrara and the favour of the Duke.


I think the last part of ths bit will stick with me: Ferrando, second and legitimate son of Ercole I.
and until Alfonso's marriage should
bear fruit the heir to the Dukedom, having
quarrelled with Alfonso, conspired to kill him and
seize the throne.
Giulio was persuaded to join in
the venture with the bribe that Ippolito was to share
the fate of Alfonso, But in accordance with the
wellknown opinion of Machiavelli in his Florentine
Histories if it is difficult to kill one tyrant it is impossible at the same time to kill two.
The
conspiracy was discovered by the observant wisdom of Ippolito, Ferrando threw himself on the mercy
of the Duke, who forthwith struck him in the eyes
with a staff to put him in other respects on a level with Giulio.
Giulio, who had taken refuge with
Isabella, his sister at Mantua, was finally surrendered
to Alfonso and brought in chains to Ferrara.
In
spite of petitions and prayers the two brothers were
sentenced to death, and it was only on the scaffold
that the sentence was commuted to imprisonment for
life.
Ferrando outlived Ippolito and Alfonso, and
died in prison twentyfive years after
, Giulio was released forty years after the death of Ippolito,
''In, more than half a century after the conspiracy,
an old halfblind man appeared in the streets of Ferrara, clad in the costume of a bygone age.
It was Don Giulio d' Este, released from his captivity
at the accession of Alfonso's grandsonthat second
Alfonso, after whose death the sovereignty of the
House of Este was to come to an end.
" Such was the justice and the mercy of the dukes of Ferrara,


Meeting with his old friend the new pope goes hilariously bad: In Februarydied Giulio II.
, the irascible Pope, who had in his later years been the great enemy
of the House of Este, He was succeeded by Giovanni
de Medici under the title of Leo X, Ariosto
had been an intimate friend of the prelate, and when
he was chosen to convey the congratulations of the
Duke of Ferrara it was generally expected by his friends that he would receive from the new Pope
some substantial token of his favour.
One biographer
indeed asserts that there was an idea that
Ariosto would be made a cardinal,
Ariosto has left a graphic account of his interview
with Leo, The Pope showed himself very willing
to hear the congratulations and to accept the homage
from Ferrara he took Ariosto by the hand and
kissed him on both cheeks but says the poet
being very shortsighted, and thinking it beneath the
dignity of a Pope to wear glasses, although he heard
him well enough, he had some difficulty in seeing
him and the other friends of the poet "newly become great " being desirous of imitating the Holy
Father also made as if they did not see him.
Lodovico
remained at Rome some two months, but so great was the crowd of suitors and so small the
persistence of Ariosto in his own interest that he
obtained no more than the remission of half some
trifling fee.



He met a lovely widow at the Vatican and they had to marry in secret because although he wasn't a priest he held some priestesque offices, where celibacy wasn't required but was the custom/expected.
Also he couldn't afford to pay her debts off, That would suck LOL. Machiavellia praised him!


What a Victorian turn of phrase, from the biographer: He wrote a letter to Raphael in terms and tone which in these days the German Emperor would not apply to a photographer.



his favourite dish was a mess of turnips mixed with vinegar and mustard prepared by himself.
. . One of the minor defects of Ariosto alluded to in Hudibras as compared with Homer or Virgil, Scott or Dumas, is the way he neglects to provide his heroes and heroines with a proper allowance of meals.
His creatures, like their creator, were always too intent on other things, It is noteworthy, however, that Ariosto does not forget the horses to the same extent,


What a pig Ariosto's father appointed as a judge: A born aristocrat, he was probably more ducal than the Duke in his relations to the people.
His own colleagues protested against his election, and the citizens consoled themselves by keeping in circulation a set of atrocious satires embalming his many bad qualities.
The embalming was so efficient that some twentythree of the sonnets have survived, and were published about half a century ago, apparently it is to be hoped for the greater glory of the poet's mother.
Nicolis described as the devourer of the city of Ferrara, an insatiable robber, of brazen face, and with a maw that can swallow wood, marble, iron, or anything even harder.
He is accused of buying his lands and enlarging his house by peculations from the commune, There is a dramatic version of a peasant coming to him to complain of being robbed of bed and cloak by Nicolo's steward on a false pretence of labourdues, not fulfilled.
The peasant has brought with him a fat lamb to sell in the market : Nicolreceives the complaint, says the steward has done wrong" but think no more of it many thanks for the lamb without it I would have seen you quite willingly.
" In vain the peasant protests he has a wife and five children, and the lamb is to be sold to buy them food he is threatened with prison, and is glad to escape with his life and without his lamb.
But the remarkable thing is that in all this abuse of Nicolthere is never a word against Daria,
On the contrary, she is introduced as trying to restrain the extortions of her husband,
February. Later he was removed from office by the duke and died in disgrace,
.