My Muse Will Have a Story to Paint: Selected Prose of Ludovico Ariosto 9781442686182

Citation preview

‘MY MUSE WILL HAVE A STORY TO PAINT’: SELECTED PROSE OF LUDOVICO ARIOSTO

THE LORENZO DA PONTE ITALIAN LIBRARY General Editors Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella, University of California at Los Angleles Honorary Chairs †Professor Vittore Branca Honorable Salvatore Cilento Honorable Dino De Poli Ambassador Gianfranco Facco Bonetti Honorable Anthony J. Scirica Advisory Board Rema Bodei, Università di Pisa Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Francesco Bruni, Università di Venezia Giorgio Ficara, Università di Torino Michael Heim, University of California at Los Angeles †Amilcare A. Iannucci, University of Toronto Rachel Jacoff, Wellesley College Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University Gilberto Pizzamiglio, Università di Venezia Margaret Rosenthal, University of Southern California John Scott, University of Western Australia Elissa Weaver, University of Chicago

THE DA PONTE LIBRARY SERIES

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’ SELECTED PROSE OF LUDOVICO ARIOSTO

Translated with an Introduction by DENNIS LOONEY

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2010 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada isbn 978-1-4426-4087-0

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Ariosto, Ludovico, 1474–1533 ‘My muse will have a story to paint’: selected prose of Ludovico Aristo / translated with an introduction by Dennis Looney. (The Da Ponte library series) Includes bibliographical references. isbn 978-1-4426-4087-0 I. Looney, Dennis II. Title. III. Series: Lorenzo da Ponte Italian library series pq4582.e5 2010 851’.3 c2010-902009-x This volume is published under the aegis and with the financial assistance of: Fondazione Cassamarca, Treviso; Ministero degli Affari Estri, Direzione Generale per la Promozione e la Cooperazione Culturale; Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Direzione Generale per i Beni Librari e gli Istituti Culturali, Servizio per la promozione del libro e della lettura. Publication of this volume is assisted by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Toronto. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

memoriae Donald Carne-Ross magistri benigni hunc libellum parvum sed aptum (1921–2010)

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

A Note on Texts and the Translation I. INTRODUCTION

1

1. Ariosto’s Prose 3 2. An Extraordinary Letter II. LETTERS

14

21

III. HERBAL DOCTOR 273 Notes

289

Bibliography

309

Table of Recipients General Index

315

317

xi

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the general editors of the Da Ponte Italian Library, Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella, as well as the anonymous readers for the press. All have been encouraging and helpful. Giovanni Contini and Paolo Caretta shared their expertise on place names and topography of northern Italy. Guido Ruggiero directed me to the best sources. Linda Carroll, Marco Doragatti, Daniel Javitch, Lawrence F. Rhu, Andrea Rizzi, Francesca Savoia, and Deanna Shemek helped with specific questions at points in the translation. In the early 1990s, Giovanna Fogli and I produced a rough draft of Herbal Doctor, which was the starting place for my version here. I benefited from that earlier stimulating collaboration and from judicious comments by the late Wesley C. Salmon, with whom I used preliminary drafts of the text in a course we taught together at the University of Pittsburgh on science and Italian culture several times between 1994 and 1999. More than once, Mark Possanza was generous with his precise Latin, sometimes even over a beer. I thank my wife, Joanna Thornton, who patiently read the entire manuscript with me on the lookout for eyeskips and infelicities; in honour of Alessandra Benucci Strozzi she was repaid with fabric and ribbons, from Emilia-Romagna no less. None of these good readers is responsible for any of the mistakes that inevitably remain. I also thank Matt Carulli, Monika Losagio, Danielle Marsh, and Amy Nichols, who helped me put together the manuscript at crucial points in its development. Ron Schoeffel at the University of Toronto Press was a pleasure to work with, as were his colleagues Anne Laughlin, Patricia Simoes, and Judith Williams. Finally, it pleases me to express my gratitude to the book’s dedicatee, Donald Carne-Ross. I first heard of Ariosto in his introductory course on ancient Greek my

Acknowledgments

sophomore year at Boston University and was inspired to learn more. Over the years Carne-Ross and I enjoyed a vigorous conversation on Ariosto and the classics at our occasional meetings and through the medium – appropriate for much of this volume’s work – of good and rich old-fashioned letters. I treasure a plain white postcard from 1997, typed out in an elegantly ‘archaic’ IBM-selectric font, with the flourish of a signature in fine ink across the bottom right corner: BYFIELD ARIOSTO SEMINAR You are cordially invited to attend the seminar at the Casa Ariostesca, May 16–18. D.S. Carne-Ross segretario della società carolingia rinascimentale To the memory of Donald I offer this cache of prose, poor exchange though it be for the gift of learning to hear the poet’s words.

x

A Note on Texts and the Translation

The translation is literal, maybe even at times painfully so. In many of the letters Ariosto’s syntax gets tangled up and is difficult to follow, putting a strain on the translation. While I am interested in creating a readable text, I try not to oversimplify his writing too heavy-handedly. Lest I scare any readers away, let me quickly say that the prose of some letters is carefully crafted with periodic sentences of beautifully balanced clauses, as is the prose of the Erbolato. For the Letters, I follow the text in Angelo Stella’s edition, which first came out in 1965, and then was revised and republished in 1984. Stella’s notes are essential for understanding the full context in which the letters are written as well as for their editorial and publication history. Antonio Cappelli’s edition of 1862, revised in a third edition in 1887, completely subsumed by Stella, has been helpful for its extensive introduction. The best linguistic notes on given letters appear in Fatini’s edition of Ariosto’s Opere minori (1915, reprinted 1978), which accompany the cluster of thirty letters he provides. The most perceptive comments on specific letters are in Mario Santoro’s edition of the Opere minori (1989). I italicize text that has been translated from Latin, following the editorial practice of Stella; most often these are bureaucratic or legal phrases that Ariosto incorporates into his text, but every now and then there is a snippet of verse. Sometimes Ariosto addresses letters in Latin, other times in Italian; most of the time he addresses letters to dignitaries in Latin, but he is not consistent. I retain capital letters in honorific titles when Ariosto is referring to a particular person, although at times the repetition of a title like ‘Most Illustrious Lord’ is admittedly awkward. And once one starts capitalizing the words in an honorific

A Note on Texts and the Translation

phrase, it is hard to know where to stop. Fowler in his Dictionary of Modern English Usage makes a case for capitals (73–5). Letters without an address line are taken from official copies in archives; the original autographs are missing. In closing letters, Ariosto most often gives the place and date in Latin with the courtly rhetoric accompanying his name in Italian, but here too he is inconsistent. Some letters have textual lacunae due to their poor material condition. I have not studied the original documents in any systematic way to try and restore such problematic passages. But I have no reason to assume that Stella’s work is not sound. In the translation I insert ellipses in square brackets to indicate such lacunae following Stella’s text. In dating his letters, Ariosto occasionally used Roman numerals over Arabic, but since I cannot decipher any meaningful pattern in his choices, I have regularized all dates with Arabic numerals. Stella concurs that Ariosto’s usage seems to be indifferent (636). Ariosto tends to spell out numbers in his prose, but at times he uses either Arabic or Roman numerals, a practice which I have followed. To regularize the translation of legal, administrative, and economic terms of institutional government in Ariosto’s world, I have benefited greatly from the following authorities: Florence Edler, Glossary of Medieval Terms of Business: Italian Series 1200–1600; Werner Gundersheimer, Ferrara: The Style of a Renaissance Despotism; Lauro Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence; and C.J. Wickham, The Mountains and the City: The Tuscan Appennines in the Early Middle Ages. Gundersheimer’s volume includes an especially helpful appendix, ‘The Administration of the Estensi’ (285–96), where some terms encountered in Ariosto’s letters are given an English equivalent. Wickham’s conclusion, especially pages 366–80, provides the most detailed discussion of Ariosto’s time in the Garfagnana in English with attention not only to the administrative structures of government there but also to many of the personalities with whom Ariosto had to grapple. Peter DeSa Wiggins also gives a good description in English of the situation in the Garfagnana in his remarks on Ariosto’s fourth satire, Satires 85–96. For weights, measurements, and money, in most cases I have opted to leave them in the original, italicized, rather than risk an anachronistic approximation; Edler’s Glossary of

xii

A Note on Texts and the Translation

Medieval Terms of Business contains helpful appendices on these items for readers who want more detailed information. I modernize the spelling of place names. I maintain Ariosto’s sometimes eclectic orthography of personal names. In the endnotes when appropriate, I refer the reader to facsimiles of various letters in the following: Bertoni’s L’Orlando Furioso e la Rinascenza a Ferrara; L’Ottava d’oro; Santoro’s edition of Opere minori; and Ludovico Ariosto. Documenti. Immagini. Fortuna Critica (LADIFC). For my translation of Herbal Doctor,1 I follow the text of Gabriella Ronchi (1984), including her decision to divide the work into five sections. I refer to the text by section and line number. Ronchi’s notes are the most extensive of any edition.

xiii

This page intentionally left blank

I: INTRODUCTION

Image Not Available

Autograph letter (letter 110 this volume) to Duke Alfonso in Ferrara sent from the Garfagnana, 31  August 1523, housed in the Archivio di Stato, Modena, Lettere di Ludovico Ariosto 1509–24, p. 52. Courtesy Euride Fregni (Prot. 1420/28.01.02/1.2).

1. Ariosto’s Prose The fame of Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533), the most important Italian poet of the Renaissance and, arguably, the most important European writer before Shakespeare, deservedly rests on his narrative poem, Orlando Furioso, which he published in the definitive third edition in 1532. In it Charlemagne’s war against the Saracens serves as a backdrop to explore typical Renaissance themes such as love, madness, and fidelity, with an elaborate subplot that dramatizes how these themes affect the dynastic fortunes of Ariosto’s patrons in the House of Este, the ducal rulers of Ariosto’s hometown, Ferrara, in northern Italy. The poem had come out in over one hundred editions by 1600, so great was its popularity. The additional works that Ariosto composed have inevitably come to be viewed as minor in comparison to the magnitude and popularity of his big poem: five plays, seven satires in verse, dozens of shorter lyric poems in Italian and Latin, and an interesting selection of works in prose, including a collection of 214 letters and a satirical prose performance piece. ‘My Muse will have a story to paint’: Selected Prose of Ludovico Ariosto is the first extensive selection of Ariosto’s prose works, including his Letters and Herbal Doctor, translated into any language. But why translate Ariosto’s prose and, more to the point, why read it? Near the end of his life Ariosto had an elegant Latin couplet inscribed across the façade of his new house in Ferrara: ‘It may be small but it suits me; it is neither offensive nor ugly and I paid for it with my own money.’ Parva sed apta mihi, the opening phrase of the inscription, is an appropriate gloss on his non-poetic writing: somewhat modest but perfectly suited to the occasions for which it was composed. Although not offensive or ugly, his prose is mainly significant for what it says rather than for how it says it. His correspondence in particular is frequently autobiographical in ways that illuminate his daily life, which by extension helps us understand the world that underlies the works he composes as poet and playwright. In the quest for biography, the critic runs the risk of falling under the sway of the autobiographical fallacy, but it is a risk worth taking in the case of Ariosto, whose life was in reality not ‘parva’ at all. In fact, many of the

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

letters belie his protestations to the contrary in the Satires in which he often feigns a Horatian detachment from the world of action. One could cite many passages in the Letters that reveal a man whose life was lived large on the world’s stage. And the heady tone of Herbal Doctor similarly suggests that its author was moving in a stimulating world of intellectual controversy at or near the centre of academic and courtly life. Letter 5, from which I take the title of this book, is a case in point. Ariosto writes his patron Cardinal Ippolito d’Este from Rome on 25 December 1509, with an excited report on how the news of the unexpected and complete Ferrarese victory over the Venetians at the battle of Polesella on 22 December has caused quite a sensation in the papal court. The Pope and his men are rejoicing, but no less so he: ‘I was especially happy for the news because, in addition to the public benefit, my Muse will have a story to paint on the tent of my Ruggiero praising your Lordship anew…’1 He alludes to the celebratory passage in Furioso 46.97, where he makes reference to the battle in the poem’s final genealogical ecphrasis that decorates the nuptial pavilion of the character destined to sire the Estense dynasty.2 The news of the Ferrarese victory has winged its way to Rome very quickly indeed, and with similar speed, it seems, the battle’s outcome makes its way into the fiction of the poem, as the letter documents. While we do not need this brief prose commentary to verify how Ariosto moves from the world of sixteenth-century politics to his poem’s narrative and back, we appreciate the precious glimpse it provides us into the poet’s creative workshop. We see just how close the fantastic world of Ariosto’s imaginary is to the chaotic world in which the man lived. Moreover, we sense how precariously the existence of his poem depends, at least before it is published, on his patron’s presence and beneficence. The point of the celebratory stanza he is now inspired to add is to reemphasize Ippolito as the poem’s dedicatee as the long narrative nears its end. The spirit that animates the phrase ‘my Muse will have a story to paint’ with its fluid oscillation between fact and fiction, patronage and creativity, should guide the reader through the prose translated in this volume. While the prose deserves to be read in its own right, ultimately it should help the reader better understand Ariosto and his extraordinary work, Orlando Furioso.

4

Introduction

Unlike many of his humanistically trained contemporaries who used Petrarch and Cicero as epistolary models, Ariosto did not artfully compose his letters with a view to future publication. With a few striking exceptions, they are not especially polished, nor did he gather them into any coherent collection before his death. The assemblage that we have is a product of arduous scholarly effort, much of which was carried out in the second half of the nineteenth century. In fact, there are surely other letters to be found. Ariosto sometimes refers to ones we do not have, e.g. in letters 41, 93, and 108, which perhaps lie buried in local archives awaiting discovery. In addition, the correspondence with him from officials in Ferrara makes frequent reference to letters from the commissioner to Ferrara that we no longer possess. Ariosto’s letters are composed in a loose version of standardized Tuscan, not in an Emilian-Ferrarese dialect or in the Po Valley koiné Matteo Maria Boiardo uses in his letters,3 suggesting that Pietro Bembo’s linguistic strictures had penetrated Ariosto’s writerly conscience more profoundly than one might have expected. But dialect forms break in at random and not for any specific rhetorical effect. Most of the letters are in a straightforward prose style that borders on what one might call chronicle writing; some even sound almost conversational. The few that are addressed to dignitaries such as a pope or a doge can rise to a high courtly style (letters 16, 27, 187), and even the narrative of his bureaucratic business sometimes sounds as if it were translated from formal Latin (letters 30, 48). Croce’s cantankerous criticism that ‘the letters are all about business,’ and that they are ‘boring, overly brief and dashed off in a hurry rarely revealing anything of his mind,’ tells us more about Croce’s expectations as a reader than about Ariosto (17). If Croce is perturbed by those passages in the Furioso that do not seem sufficiently harmonious, how can we expect him to read patiently through Ariosto’s concerned prose on such topics as salt, donkeys, chestnuts, not to mention ribbons and fabric for his wife? But even in these missives full of the daily chatter of an engaged Renaissance life, today’s reader will find a certain degree of harmony in Ariosto’s quotidian existence. The majority of the letters deal with issues arising from his position as the local representative of the Este family in the Garfagnana region

5

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

on the borders between northernmost Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, and Lombardy from 1522 to 1525 (letters 30–186). These letters are essentially bureaucratic compositions, reports replete with updates on the business of government, so much so that at times one may feel ready to concede Croce’s point. Some few, however, are brisk literary narratives that reveal the hand of a master (letters 13, 43, 59). Although aimed at solving local problems, the letters nevertheless provide insight into Ariosto’s take on the political, social, and growing religious crises of the day. Mengaldo proposes that Boiardo’s letters constitute the most important example of political and administrative epistolography in the second half of the 1400s in Emilia-Romagna (Opere volgari 452). Ariosto’s letters on the Garfagnana are documents of political and administrative discourse that are as important for the first third of the 1500s. They touch on crime and banditry, shipping rights across the ducal territory, freedom of movement for citizens across and around borders, petty corruption of local officials, defence of the territory, and justice – a word that Ariosto calls upon often in his attempt to make sense of what he sees happening around him (letters 97, 116, 122, 131, 160, and elsewhere). Despite his dedication, justice is elusive and our poet in his role as provincial sheriff becomes somewhat jaded if not downright cynical about the possibilities of good government, especially in his last year on the job (letters 139, 163). In letters to friends and his Este patrons, he comes to lament his post and its onerous service, the challenging setting, and the people, which includes no small number of crooks, some of whom are priests. In these moments the letters sound themes that percolate in the prologues to many cantos of the Furioso where the authorial voice intervenes to comment on goodness, loyalty, faith, and other human qualities necessary for the successful functioning of civil society, qualities missing, alas, in the Garfagnana and in much of Ariosto’s contemporary world. When it is necessary and when he is able, Ariosto deals with the chaos of the world he is trying to govern with force. But at other moments he modulates that approach and tries to outwit the criminals all around him, sounding Machiavellian in comments like ‘I am in favour of using the right words with them to reassure them as much as possible, doing with my wits what I cannot do with brute strength’

6

Introduction

(letter 64). Whereas in letter 125 Ariosto is critical of a ducal subject’s fabricated story, several days later in letter 126 he invites the Duke to make something up himself: ‘… if you have something that I may use to pick up their spirits, please tell me, and if there is nothing, then at least pretend that there is something’ (letter 126). He realizes that good government requires simulation at times. Twenty-one letters are fascinating and important for the light they shed on the composition and production of the Furioso (letters 5, 12, 15–17, 26, 29, 187, 190–1, 193, 196, 198, 210–12) and several of Ariosto’s plays (letters 22, 27, 199, 202, 213) from the time of Ariosto’s youth to his old age. These are not fulsome ‘lettere poetiche’ of the sort that Torquato Tasso laboured over in articulating his positions on various literary theoretical problems. Rather, these literary letters provide brief glimpses into Ariosto’s workshop as he produced his work. In addition to references to the ongoing writing and revision of the Furioso at crucial junctures before the publication of each edition (1516, 1521, 1532), Ariosto’s literary letters reveal his active campaign to secure copyright privileges from the political leaders of the important printing centres of northern Italy. The poet emerges as author and literary agent (letter 29), who in addition to composing his works must market and publicize them and even request permission to have paper for printing them transported across state borders (letters 15, 193). Of special concern is his ongoing struggle to protect himself from illegal pirated editions. As he makes clear, this was a financial issue, but it was also about establishing and maintaining the definitive and most correct versions of his works. And as he had done in the composition of the first Furioso, for the final version that he was completing in the early 1530s, he invites no one less than Pietro Bembo to help him revise the poem’s Italian (letter 190). These letters enable a fuller understanding of the challenging economic and cultural realities against which Ariosto played off his poem and other creative writings. There is a third cluster of letters that deal with Ariosto’s general affairs as a young man before he goes to work in the Garfagnana and as an older man when he returns to Ferrara after that service. The earliest letter in the collection, Ariosto’s only remaining one in Latin, is an

7

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

eloquent request for books sent to the Venetian printer and bookseller, Aldo Manuzio (letter 1). This letter from 1498 documents Ariosto’s participation in the world of northern Italian humanism and suggests the extent to which he was one of the leaders of his cohort in Ferrara at the turn of the century. Other letters he wrote as a young man reveal the insecurities of a would-be courtier trying hard to please his demanding patron, even when not fairly compensated (letter 10). In letter 13, an amazing literary tour de force and perhaps Ariosto’s most carefully crafted epistle, classical poetry is put to work to comment on the complicated politics of the day. This letter, which I will discuss in more detail in the introduction’s next section, represents a successful rhetorical fusion of Ariosto’s humanism and his political engagement that will be on display again in the Furioso from the first edition to the third. The letters of his last years include several written in the voice of Alessandra Benucci Strozzi (letters 189, 192, 205–7, 214), his secretly wedded wife, including one in which he signs off as ‘her secretary’ (letter 205). The master of comedic ventriloquism does a good job imitating his wife’s voice, but then again perhaps she stood over him and he merely took dictation like a competent scribe. In either case, it may be that he ghost-wrote for her in her voice to protect the inheritance she was due from her first marriage, which linked her to the powerful and wealthy Florentine Strozzi family.4 Only around twenty of the letters were published before the nineteenth century, when there was suddenly intense interest in locating, editing, and publishing as many of them as possible.5 In the mid-nineteenth century, the Tuscanization of Ariosto, the man and his writing, was continuing aggressively. During the Risorgimento there was a conscious attempt to find national heroes for the new Italy and, given the Tuscan hegemony over intellectual life in the peninsula, poets like Ariosto from other parts of the country were measured and assessed by a Tuscan standard. Ariosto’s poem had already been Tuscanized to a large extent by the poet in its second and third editions in the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century local historians began to Tuscanize Ariosto himself. New research was discovering the fullness of his life with its significant ties to Florence and Tuscany. Archival research discovered that sometime in the mid to late 1520s, possibly 1528, the poet

8

Introduction

had married the Florentine Alessandra Benucci Strozzi after courting her on numerous visits to Florence prior to that year. But most important for his ties to Tuscany are the letters from the Garfagnana. Nineteenth-century scholars working in municipal and state archives discovered letters from Ariosto to officials in Lucca, Florence, Ferrara, Modena, and elsewhere. Between 1857 and 1876, no fewer than fifteen articles or books came to light with copies of Ariosto’s letters from the Garfagnana.6 Out of these discoveries there emerged a more balanced image of an engaged writer who knew something about the trappings of power from firsthand experience. This picture of the poet as a politically savvy practitioner modified and corrected the image of the absentminded romancer. In the wake of this research into Ariosto the political administrator, Italo Svevo worked on a play in the early 1880s, ‘Ariosto governatore,’ left incomplete, in which he flips the trend of positivist criticism to present a fictionalized portrait of the poet as ducal employee in the Garfagnana.7 With Svevo’s work the recuperation of Ariosto’s career moves back into the realm of mimesis. Ariosto returned to Ferrara in 1525 and sometime before his death in 1533, probably after 1530, he composed Herbal Doctor.8 This little masterpiece of satiric prose parodies humanism in general and Neoplatonic philosophy in particular with its hopeful proposition that an ennobling education will lift the human from one level of being to another upwards toward enlightenment. By the mid-1520s, when Ariosto sounded some very ambiguous notes about humanistic learning in his sixth satire, he had already moved far beyond the youthful enthusiasm of his letter to Manuzio of 1498 with its suggestion that the budding humanist was interested in classical knowledge for its own sake. Herbal Doctor, composed in the form of a monologue delivered by Master Antonio Faventino, develops this critique in the playful garb of street theatre. Antonio is an amalgam of several identifiable contemporaries of Ariosto, first among them an itinerant intellectual and teacher associated with the town of Faenza (whence the name Faventino), Antonio Cittadini, who died in 1518. Cittadini spent much time in Ferrara, where he taught medicine in the 1470s and 1480s, and where he gained some notoriety for being embroiled

9

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

in a dispute with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, and Angelo Poliziano on the interpretation of Platonic philosophy. In the early 1490s Ariosto was beginning to participate in Ferrarese intellectual life and it may be that in the Herbal Doctor he is recalling moments from his own formation as an intellectual in the midst of this and similar disputations. Other figures who may bear the brunt of Ariosto’s irony include the humanist Celio Calcagnini and his student (and eventual editor) Antonio Musa Brasavola. Brasavola began teaching at the Ferrarese Studium in 1528, the timing of which makes him a likely source of inspiration for the satire. It is probable, then, that the irony is directed at a variety of figures whose lives overlapped with Ariosto’s from his arrival on the intellectual scene in the 1490s to the last years of his life in the 1530s. 9 The venerable professor of medicine Nicolò da Lunigo, known as Leoniceno, who is cited at length in the work’s fourth section, taught in Ferrara over much of this same period from 1464 to 1524. Ariosto’s act of singling him out for ridicule marks the extent to which he is taking on the academic establishment in his satire. In addition to their open disagreements about Platonic philosophy and its reception in their day, Leoniceno and his contemporaries were involved in an even more fundamental debate over the value and certitude of medical knowledge that seems to be present just beneath the surface of Ariosto’s piece. His direct citation of Pliny and the rewriting of a passage from Pliny’s Natural History in the first section of Herbal Doctor draws attention to the role that this particular classical source played as a focus in the humanistic debate over the relevance and possibility of accurate medical knowledge.10 Pliny became a focal point in the 1490s and the critique and defence of Pliny continued in the 1500s with newly printed editions of Leoniceno’s work against Pliny in circulation during Ariosto’s lifetime. At the heart of the debate was the specific question of whether a text like the Natural History was a reliable source of medical (or other) information in the first place in the context of the larger issue of which authorities were the most accurate and dependable sources in general. Poliziano and Leoniceno argued over the status of Pliny’s text, with the former pitting philological expertise and philosophical rigour against the latter’s accumulated

10

Introduction

medical experience and knowledge of the sources.11 Pandolfo Collenuccio, who was a member of the Este court alongside Leoniceno,12 weighed in forcefully on the side of Poliziano in a brilliant defence of Pliny. Whereas Leoniceno favoured Greek sources above all others, especially instead of medieval Arabic and Latin works, Collenuccio made a coherent case for the value of any reliable source of information, even a modern vernacular source. Collenuccio dismisses Leoniceno indirectly when he claims that those who are ‘addicted to the vanities of the Greeks’ should ‘admire and cherish likewise the genius of our modern writers’ (Thorndike 601). Ariosto takes these concerns about erudition versus practical knowledge, scholarly sources versus lived experience, not to mention the overriding theme of the ability of the human to use reason to challenge death through the mastery of medicine, and incorporates them all into the satire of his work. In the venerable tradition of the charlatan or quack doctor, the protagonist is portrayed hawking a miraculous medicinal potion in the town square. He claims that his herbal medicine is a universal remedy for any illness. His pseudo-philosophical description of the importance of medicine for humankind eventually becomes a theatrical sales pitch for his elixir, with many of the elements of the performance recalling Ariosto’s comedy The Necromancer. As the rhetoric modulates from a pastiche of Pliny and Neoplatonic oratory to the verbal playfulness of theatre, Ariosto’s satire becomes a searing criticism of the academy and its relation to the marketplace. That rather vague socio-economic construct, the marketplace of ideas, gives way to the actual market stall from which the charlatan tries to sell his brain-child. Ariosto’s analysis of the relation between the world of ideas and the reality of the marketplace calls into question many of those same points that philological and medical humanists and physicians of practical medicine were debating: namely, the truthfulness of academic discourse, the relation of knowledge to power, and the necessity of human experience to validate ideas. In raising these various questions, Ariosto reduces the intellectual to, if not a huckster, at least a kind of retailer. Ariosto’s questioning of humanism and its values may also mark a defence of his own decision sometime at the beginning of the new

11

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

century to turn away from the philological world of his humanist contemporaries with its focus on scholarship in order to pursue a different kind of learning better expressed in the vernacular. Celio Calcagnini, whom Ariosto may be having fun with in the portrait of Antonio Faventino, dramatizes Ariosto’s decision to separate from the pack of humanists who distinguished Ferrara in the first decades of the 1500s as a choice for the culture of romance. In Calcagnini’s Equitatio, or A Dialogue on Horseback (ca. 1507), the roster of participants is an honour roll of Ferrarese and Mantuan humanism at the turn of the century, including Calcagnini, Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, Demetrio Mosco, Daniele Fini, Mario Equicola, and Ariosto. The interlocutors engage in a wide-ranging discussion of philosophical, literary, and philological questions, including Ariosto’s description of his new literary project, which will culminate in the Orlando Furioso. Calcagnini has him associate his poem in progress with three things: the incredible feats of giants and heroes; the French literary culture of adventurous and enticing romance narratives; and the piazza, that space used for the public presentation of Franco-Italian narrative poetry produced by cantastorie, the wandering minstrels or rhapsodes of romance (562). The piazza is also the theatrical space used by charlatans to make their pitch, much as his own herbalist quack does. But Ariosto rides off, as it were, in a different direction, toward a new kind of writing that incorporates the classical into vernacular romance in ways that Calcagnini could not accept or perhaps even understand. Calcagnini seems to imagine an either/or literary career for the young humanist poet: either erudite neo-Latin verse of the sort that Poliziano composed or vulgar romance narrative poetry.13 But Ariosto has another possibility in mind, something more like a blend of the two. Could it be that several decades later with this satirical prose work he responds playfully, if forcefully, to the Calcagninis of his world, those humanists and university academicians who underestimate or even dismiss the vernacular learning on display in a work like the Furioso and in a satire like the Erbolato? Herbal Doctor is a singular prose piece, which has led critics over the centuries to challenge its attribution to Ariosto. In the introduction to her edition, Gabriella Ronchi argues convincingly for its

12

Introduction

uniqueness not only in Ariosto’s oeuvre but in the whole of Italian literature itself (89–90). It was first published posthumously in 1545 with subsequent editions in 1581, 1609, and 1730 (in the Orlandini edition of the Opere). Although Fatini satisfactorily resolved the question of authorship in his edition of 1915, subsequent editors have continued to regard the work as insignificant. Segre’s anthology of Ariosto’s Opere minori (1954), which for at least a generation was the most important edition of the minor works, does not even include Herbal Doctor; in fact, the work is dismissed as a ‘monotonous and not very brilliant speech’ (1165). For the most part Anglo-American critics have been neglectful or critical. Baker and Giamatti are typical in calling Herbal Doctor a work ‘of no literary interest’ in their introduction to Rose’s translation of the Furioso (Orlando Furioso xviii). There have been exceptions to this disregard (Ronchi’s edition of Erbolato and her article ‘Note sull’Erbolato,’ Santoro’s edition of Opere minori and his article ‘L’Erbolato o la mercificazione della cultura,’ Ascoli, Sangirardi, and Ferroni’s Ariosto and ‘Nota sull’Erbolato’), but the work has yet to receive its due. That said, no less a critic than Giacomo Leopardi recognized its literary brilliance, the first section of which he included in his Crestomazia as an example of distinguished expository prose (218–20). It is time for readers to take this work seriously. I have decided not to include several other minor examples of prose that we have from Ariosto, all of which are documents connected with the business of running the ducal government in the Garfagnana from 1522 to 1525.14 Nor am I including the prose versions of his plays, which have already been translated.15 In these editorial decisions I am adhering to the choices of Giovanni Andrea Barotti, who in the fourth volume of the 1741 Pitteri edition of Ariosto’s works put together one of the earliest anthologies of Ariosto’s prose, which includes the Erbolato (pp. 833–47) and three of the Lettere (pp. 848–52). He does not include the prose comedies, nor does he include any of those other minor prose pieces from Ariosto’s bureaucratic career such as the Conto dei Contadini, a record book from the commissioner’s years in the Garfagnana.

13

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

2. An Extraordinary Letter I would like now to turn to an example of one of Ariosto’s letters that brings together elements of his writing as a literary humanist and a politically savvy courtier. Written relatively early in his life, letter 13 (1 October 1512) is a masterfully crafted piece that anticipates the poet’s later skill at juxtaposing his vernacular writing alongside texts in the classical tradition. When sixteenth-century commentators call Ariosto the Virgilio volgare, the vernacular Vergil, they are referring to epic scenes conjured up by his allusive intertextuality in the Furioso, but we see the origins of that literary skill in this early letter. Four years before the publication of the Furioso in its first edition, the budding Ferrarese poet as well as sometime diplomat and civil servant makes a series of striking allusions to Vergil’s Aeneid in what are, I believe, his earliest published references to the Roman epic. 16 The allusions are actually citations of the original Latin text embedded in the letter, which is composed in Italian. What is perhaps most striking about this early example of Ariosto’s recourse to Vergil is the context in which he presents his allusions to the Roman epic. Here is the text of the original followed by my translation. Ill.mo et ex.mo domino meo obs.mo Ludovico Gonzagae Principi. Mantuae. V. S. ex.ma ha certamente de la fada e del negromante, o di che altro più mirando, nel venirmi a ritrovar qui con la sua lettera del xx augusti, hor hora che sono uscito de le latebre e de’ lustri de le fiere e passato alla conversation de gli homini. De’ nostri periculi non posso anchora parlare: animus meminisse horret, luctuque refugit, e d’altro lato V. S. ne havrà odito già: quis iam locus, quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris? Da parte mia non è quieta anchora la paura, trovandomi anchora in caccia, ormato da levrieri, da’ quali Domine ne scampi. Ho passata la notte in una casetta da soccorso, vicin di Firenze, col nobile mascherato, l’orecchio all’erta et il cuore in soprassalto. Quis talia fando etc. L’illustrissimo signor Duca, con il quale heri ha conferito longamente il C. Pianelli, parlerà de’ duo affari al Cardinale, il quale fra giorni si aspetta da Bologna, et io medesimo per quanto sia bono a poterla servire adoperrò ogne pratica, essendo de l’honore de Vostra Signoria,

14

Introduction

qual affectionato servitore, bramosissimo. Quello sia da fare e da sperare saprà da m. Rainaldo e fido che ne serà satisfatta, quantunque io non sia troppo gagliardo oratore. Il cielo continua tuttavia molto obscuro, onde non metteremoci in via così sùbeto per non haver anchora ad andar in maschera fuori de stagione e col bordone. Voglia V. S. recarmi alla memoria de la Ill.ma S. Princ.ssa Flisca quanto è permisso a observantissimo e deditissimo servitore, et a quelle in buona gratia mi raccomando. Florentiae, 1 octobris MDXII. Di V. S. ex.ma Humilis et deditis servus Lud. Ariostus.17 To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, Most Worthy of Honour, Prince Ludovico Gonzaga. In Mantua. Your Most Excellent Lordship must have something of the fairy or the magician or of some other being more powerful, with your letter of 20 August coming to find me here as I have just now emerged from the hideouts and dens of wild beasts and returned to the civil society of men. Of our dangers I cannot yet speak: the mind shudders to remember, and it takes refuge from the pain. On the other hand, Your Lordship will have already heard about it: Which place, which land does not resound with our troubles? As regards me, my fear has not yet subsided, since I find myself still being hunted, tracked by greyhounds, from whom may the Lord God help us escape. With my nobleman in disguise, I spent the night in a rural refuge near Florence, my ears pricked up and my heart thumping. Who by telling such things, etc. The Most Illustrious Lord Duke, with whom Count Pianelli conferred at length yesterday, will speak of the two affairs to the Cardinal,18 who is expected to arrive in Bologna in a matter of days. And I myself, inasmuch as it is good to be able to serve you, will be as careful as I can, especially desirous of the honour of being an affectionate servant of Your Lordship. From Messer Rainaldo you will learn about what we hope will be done. I trust that you will be satisfied, although I am not a very accomplished diplomat. In any case, the sky remains ominous, wherefore we will not set out on the road immediately so as not to have to disguise ourselves again in masks (out of season) and with pilgrims’ walking sticks. May Your Lordship please remember me to the Most Illustrious Lady

15

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Princess Flisca as much as is permissible for a most observant and dedicated servant. And to you both in gratitude I commend myself. Florence, 1 October 1512. Of the Most Excellent Lordship Your Humble and Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto.19

Ariosto drafts this spirited letter to a friend, Ludovico Gonzaga, who is peripherally connected with the ruling lords of Mantua, the town of Vergil’s birth. He reports on the outcome of an aborted visit that Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, made to Rome in the summer of 1512 trying to secure the military support of the papacy in the ongoing political struggles amid shifting alliances across the northern and central parts of the Italian peninsula (Catalano, Vita 1: 348–50). The French forces and their Estense allies had won a Pyrrhic victory at Ravenna in April 1512 over the Spanish, allies of Pope Julius II, but in the wake of the battle Alfonso realized that it would be strategic to renegotiate a treaty of some sort with the Pope. Alfonso arrived in Rome in early July but was forced to flee within two weeks, after being threatened with imprisonment by Pope Julius II for not agreeing to the pontiff’s terms, among them, leaving Ferrara to the Church in exchange for Asti. Alfonso escaped Rome in disguise dressed like a friar on 19 July, and Ariosto, as best we can reconstruct, was sent by his patron, Ippolito d’Este, Alfonso’s brother, to meet him at some point later in the summer as the Duke made his way back up the peninsula to Ferrara. Alfonso and Ariosto spent the months of August and September in hiding and moving furtively across Umbria and Tuscany to arrive finally in Florence at the end of September, where a letter sent by Gonzaga reaches them, to which Ariosto responds with the letter that we have. Alfonso’s escape in disguise with his subsequent journey across Italy was enough of a historic event that Bembo and Guicciardini both describe it in some detail in their respective histories.20 While the three citations are from the Aeneid and enable us to begin to assess Ariosto’s response to Vergil as an epic poet, the context in which they are couched has several of the essential elements of the genre of romance, diametrically opposed to epic, or so it would seem. Flight, hiding, disguise are all constituent parts of the literary tradition

16

Introduction

associated in Ariosto’s mind with Franco-Italian and French literature of romance, sometimes based on Carolingian stories but frequently harking back to Arthurian legend. Boiardo melded those two bodies of literary sources into an Italian tradition that Ariosto would inherit (Rajna 22–30). And the opening line of the letter announces the quintessential theme of medieval romance, magic. Gonzaga is nothing less than a wizard (in the tradition of Merlin of Arthurian fame) who must have used extraordinary powers to see to it that his letter found Ariosto while our poet was in hiding. Moreover, Ariosto can speculate in amazement that his friend may be a being even more powerful than a mere magician. Carefully, albeit playfully, Ariosto establishes a literary tone of romance in the opening of his letter to Gonzaga. Why then turn to the archetypal Roman epic to gloss that experience? Ariosto and Alfonso on the run have some things in common, it turns out, with Aeneas, fleeing from fallen Troy headed to he knows not quite where. To make sense of their flight and wanderings, the modern poet turns to Vergil’s text as a gloss, first calling on a passage from the beginning of Book 2 where Dido has prompted Aeneas to speak, which he begins to do despite the painful memories of the Greek siege. The Trojan visitor’s opening line to his Carthaginian host, Infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem (2.3), was brilliantly borrowed two centuries earlier by Dante for the beginning of Ugolino’s speech in the pit of hell in one of the grimmest scenes in Italian literature (Inferno 33.4–5).21 There was a precedent, then, for reading Vergil’s sobering line in a serious vein, to put it mildly. But Ariosto turns the seriousness of that reception on its head, forgetting epic and the infernal tragedy of Ugolino to claim that he cannot yet speak of his troubles. It is at this point that he shifts to Vergil’s Latin from Aeneid 2.12 for the first of the three citations: the mind shudders to remember, and it takes refuge from the pain. Despite the genuine trouble and hardship Ariosto and his patron have been enduring, somehow the lighthearted tone of the letter gives the lie to the cited passage and its context in the Aeneid. If Ariosto is renewing unspeakable sorrow, he does not seem too burdened by it. Could it be, rather, that he is casting Alfonso in the role of Aeneas? After all, the Duke of Ferrara is the actual leader. If so, then perhaps we should think of Ariosto representing himself in the role of

17

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

an uncharacteristically talkative Achates, who accompanies his leader in the Vergilian original. The subsequent references to Alfonso in disguise, ‘nobile mascherato’ and ‘andar in maschera fuori de stagione,’ may be meant to remind the reader that Aeneas first enters Carthage under cover of a magical cloud conjured up by his mother, Venus, who has appeared in disguise earlier in Book 1. Ariosto’s citation points toward a passage in the Aeneid that in fact does have some elements that are analogous to the experience he is trying to illuminate for his reader. That is, the epic source offers up some romance material to Ariosto, which he then works into the subtext of his letter. The second citation seems to confirm such a tone in that it undermines the first quotation. I cannot speak but I do not really need to, because Which place, which land does not resound with our troubles? Ariosto borrows from the passage in Book 1.459–60, where Aeneas, weeping before the murals of the Trojan War that adorn the temple of Juno in Carthage, commiserates with Achates.22 Aeneas arrives in Carthage, a war refugee, and sees the cataclysmic event that brought about the downfall of his civilization depicted in ecphrastic art on the town’s main temple. The war hero can reflect with good reason on the spread of his fame, but is it really legitimate for Ariosto to propose an analogous comparison, even if we are meant to associate Alfonso with Aeneas? Have the two moderns really endured anything comparable to the fall of Troy? Is their civilization really at an end and furthermore is it the equivalent of Troy in the first place? Again, the tone is a little over the top. But setting aside the context for the comparison Alfonso-Aeneas and the question of whether or not such a comparison is merited, recalling this specific passage from the Aeneid sets up a series of weighty parallels within the epic tradition. For Vergil’s scene of Aeneas weeping before the depiction of the Trojan War in Aeneid 2 recalls Odysseus crying when Demodocus recites the same story in Odyssey 8 (Burrow 35–6). As is frequently the case, the Renaissance writer alludes to a Roman author who in turn is alluding to a Greek text, setting up a kind of telescoping of imitation from modern to ancient to even more ancient and thus reaffirming the traditional canon while at the same time extending it by placing himself firmly in it. Here Ariosto’s citation has the effect of reminding the reader of his

18

Introduction

engaged attempt to establish Italian culture as a worthy vehicle for the creation of vernacular classics. It is a move in defence of his own masterpiece in the works, the Furioso. The letter’s narrative shifts back to its own plot with the author making another erudite allusion, this time to Dante’s Inferno: ‘Allor fu la paura un poco queta’ (1.19) (Then my fear quieted down a bit). Like Dante at the start of his poem, Ariosto pauses momentarily to collect himself, to calm his fear, on the outskirts of Florence in a hut (Binni 289). Finally, we come to the third direct citation, ‘Quis talia fando etc’ (Who by telling such things etc.), which takes the reader back to Vergil’s text with a reference to Aeneid 2.6, another passage where Aeneas reflects on his inability to recount his unbelievable tale without crying. Alluding to the fall of Troy and to the epic time between the Iliad and the Odyssey, Vergil has his character ask who among the soldiers accompanying Achilles from Thessaly, ‘Myrmidonum Dolopumve’ ([who] of the Myrmidons or Dolopians), and among those with Odysseus, ‘aut duri miles Ulixi’ (or [which] soldier of stern Odysseus), could refrain from crying at having to recount such a tale. The rhetorical question establishes the two poles of Homeric epic as possible examples of conduct. One can write directly about the harsh reality of war, as in the Iliad, or one can write about the trip home after the war, with a zigzagging itinerary full of love and wonder, as in the Odyssey. Or one can combine the two generic possibilities of epic and romance into one, as we see in the Aeneid. Ariosto cites passages in the Aeneid that emphasize war’s less heroic underside in a context of quintessential romance almost to the point of parodying the epic. Before the publication of his Furioso with its vast array of allusions to Vergilian epic, the poet had established a framework for responding to the Aeneid that respected its dual nature as epic and romance, and in so doing he set a precedent that later critics in the 1500s would have to deal with.23 Ariosto’s letters were not meant to be published, but this letter in particular is written with such verve one wonders if it was intended for some form of private circulation beyond its stated recipient. As Ariosto makes the complicated transition from neo-Latin humanist to a new kind of vernacular classicist on the verge of publishing the first edition

19

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

of his Furioso, letter 13 can be read as a manifesto on how to incorporate the antique into the modern. It contains in essence a rudimentary formula for combining old and new and, importantly, it shows that the author does not intend to forego the latter for the former.

20

II: LETTERS

Historical map of Italy c. 1490 (detail). Northern Italy. Based on image created by University of Texas at Austin. From Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1912).

The first section of the correspondence, letters 1–29, includes a unique letter in Latin, the earliest surviving letter, which shows Ariosto’s intense engagement with humanism as a young student. Several other letters in this opening section of letters written before Ariosto assumed his duties in the Garfagnana document the poet’s shift to literary production in the ascendant vernacular in the early decades of the cinquecento. Important among these are letters in which Ariosto refers to the publication, production, and distribution of the Orlando Furioso as well as the production of several of his comedies. The other letters written between 1509 and 1520 show the extent to which these were formative years for Ariosto as a courtier and diplomat. He is officially employed as a member of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este’s court from 1503 until 1517; he serves Duke Alfonso subsequently from 1518 until his death in 1533. In several of these earlier letters, e.g., letter 4, Ariosto makes a case, unbeknownst to him, for his eventual employment as an Estense official in the Garfagnana. He is perceptive, critical, and at least for a while eager to please his patrons and make progress in the world of courtly power. Competent and level-headed, he has many of the skills already in place to manage crises effectively.

Historical map of Italy c. 1490 (detail). Valley of the Po. Based on image created by University of Texas at Austin. From Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1912).

Letter 1 to Aldo Manuzio Ariosto writes to the famous Venetian printer and humanist in Latin, his only surviving letter in the language, requesting books that deal with Platonic philosophy.

To Lord Aldo Manuzio of Bassiano, a Man extremely Learned and Honourable, etc. In Venice. Since Sebastiano Aquila, devoted cultivator of the liberal arts – who has a public charge to teach medicine here and also dedicates himself to Platonic philosophy – is lecturing on Plato’s Timaeus during our holidays to a large audience, there is significant interest among scholars to have the books of Marsilio Ficino and however much has been translated into Latin from the pages of Greek Platonists. And since you more than any other person are able to satisfy them (I learned this from, among others, most recently Alberto Pio,1 wellknown and extremely learned, who, returning from Venice, brought us a volume in which writings by Platonic philosophers have been collected together with other books), in order to follow through with the requests of these scholars and also bearing in mind what is best for you, assuming that it is not inconsequential if more of your books are sold, I have considered it my duty to insist with this letter that you indulge our legitimate desire. Wherefore, if you do not hold in low esteem the request of so many men of letters, send us whatever you have on the topic. In this way, as well as benefiting yourself, you will save the scholars the trouble of sailing to Venice. Farewell. Ferrara, 5 January 1498. Ludovico Ariosto wrote this. Letter 2 to Ludovico da Fabriano Ariosto drafts a brief letter of introduction for himself in the name of Cardinal Ippolito to present to the Estense agent in Rome. Catalano proposes December 1505 as approximate date for this letter (Vita 1: 224).

Messer Ludovico Ariosto, a very dear member of our court, is coming there for certain affairs he must oversee. If he needs your favour and help, he will turn to you. We will be extremely pleased if whatever

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

he asks of you, in the name of justice you grant as a favour to him and help him as much as you are able. We commend ourselves to you for your benefit. Farewell. Letter 3 to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este Ariosto reports on Ferrarese affairs to the Cardinal, who is in the field with the imperial troops of the League of Cambrai against the Venetians. There is anxiety at home about the duchy’s massive debt.

To My Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord, My Singular Lord, Lord Cardinal Estense, etc. In the imperial camp. My Most Illustrious Lord. In order to carry out as much as Your Excellency has ordered, I will try to learn what news it is possible to learn and I will keep you apprised of it on a daily basis. At the moment throughout Ferrara there is much talk of Benjamin the Jew from Riva, who has declared bankruptcy for 14,000 ducats, which he had borrowed from other foreign Jews. He had credit with Counts Ranaldo Sacrato and Hieronymo Roveralla and with others for thousands of ducats that cannot be collected. Everybody in Ferrara is talking about this. People are saying that the Duke, realizing that he had much money from Christians with interest, wanted to know who the middlemen were who were loaning money at usurious rates. Furthermore, the Duke wanted to take from him all this money which was usurious for Christians. And rumour undermining the truth has it that the aforementioned Count Ranaldo had loaned two thousand ducats to the Jew, as have many others who have been named. Even Marco Marighella, who can be trusted in these affairs, verified for me that the Jew’s situation is as I have described above. He also said that much of Your Excellency’s money is with that bank. Even though the Duke has guaranteed safe-conduct to Benjamin, the money is not very safe there, because he could flee with it. Marco also said to me that others nearby are in danger of bankruptcy because we are in a period when each investor who has money on loan is trying to get it back into his own accounts. Concerning the loan that the Duke took out from some private citizens, throughout the city there is fear lest he follow up with a

26

Letters

general request from the public as a whole. In fact, I have heard it said, although I believe it to be false, that he wants to levy a tax on the city for one hundred thousand ducats. On this the people are of differing opinions but no one would be happy if he passed the tax. Throughout the Ferrarese countryside there has been a woeful harvest for wine, so it is going at 14 and 15 lire per castellata.2 Grain is at 12 bolognini per 31 litres. Those who have it for sale are hoping for a sharp price increase. I have seen some letters from individuals who live in and around Adria and in all those villages that are at the furthest end of the Po near the coast. If the waters rise, there is the strong suspicion that the Venetians will attack them with their fleet in order to rob them, to prey upon them, and to victimize them more out of the hate that they have for us than out of any intent to occupy our land. And people from several of the aforementioned places have already set up houses in Ferrara to be safe and to protect their property of value. As soon as I received the letter from Your Excellency, I took note of these few points, such as they are, so as not to be called negligent. I will pay more attention daily and do whatever I can to gather intelligence. I will spend more time in the piazza3 than I have done since your departure. And whatever news I hear, I will pass on to you. I kiss your hand and humbly commend myself. Ferrara, 7 September 1509. Of the Most Illustrious Lord Your Faithful Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 4 to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este A report on various Ferrarese affairs, including a duel.

To the Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord, My Lord Most Worthy of Honour, Lord Cardinal Estense, etc. My Most Illustrious Lord. Last Monday I went to Nonantula on a business outing connected with the affairs of one of my brothers-inlaw. I visited the Most Reverend Cardinal Cesarini there. I told him

27

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

that I had come to pay reverence to His Excellency because I realized that if Your Excellency had been in Ferrara you would have certainly sent one of your men to do so. I also realized that I was in a position to take care of it, and that if I came up short, I would be reprimanded by Your Excellency. The Cardinal welcomed me very graciously and offered me many kindnesses due to his affection for Your Excellency. And then he told me that in the past couple of days he had sent one of his seneschals to visit Your Excellency in the field and that after his departure he had not heard any news and that he was very fearful about things. He beseeched me to write to Your Excellency to see if you knew anything about the messenger. Afterwards he spoke to me about a handsome greyhound which he understood belonged to Your Excellency’s stall master. It was clear from the way he spoke that he desired to have it. I explained to him that Your Excellency gave one of the stall master’s dogs to a Spaniard in the past couple of days. I was doubtful that it was that one that had been praised by His Excellency because I did not know of any other dog belonging to the stall master that was so fine. Since I was right there he saw a hound of mine to which I am very attached because of her beauty and which I intended to use to produce litters. He asked me to give her to him as a gift. Not knowing how to deny him, I did, and I am still sad about it. Saturday he departed for Rome and he requested that I commend him to Your Most Illustrious Excellency as if to a patron of his with a thousand touching words full of expressions of humility, all of which would take a long time to write down. The legal problems that he had with some Nonantulans who had defaulted on their contracts he handed over to Messer Teodosio Brugia.4 While I was there, Brugia took care of the problem by allowing those men to get their investments back, proceeding one by one paying some of them a little, others a great amount, according to the amounts and the time of their defaults. I believe, based on the beginning that I saw, that the Cardinal will draw several hundred ducats from it. When I came back to town, I met two Sicilians to whom the Duke granted permission to duel. Marino da la Maitina challenged Francesco Salamone to a duel over a disagreement about a marriage, which I believe Your Excellency has already been informed of. If I

28

Letters

believed that Your Excellency did not know about it, I would inform myself better and I would fully advise you on it. The report is that they will fight next Friday if they can come to an agreement; but up to now they have not been able to do that. Marino has written that he wants to challenge Francesco on four issues: the first is that a certain niece or stepdaughter of his is the wife of Francesco, to which Francesco has answered that the civil or canonical authority can decide rather than the fortune of weapons. The other three issues are as follows: Marino claims that he allowed said Francesco to sleep with the aforementioned niece; that Francesco has used up and wasted the income of the aforementioned; that Francesco will not dare to duel because he is a coward and a Jew. To these three complaints Francesco responds that Marino is a liar. But Marino appears to be related to the woman; therefore Francesco does not want to fight. This is what has happened in this affair as of tonight as reported to me by Hercole, who is a companion of Francesco. Giving Your Excellency news of this affair that I recently discovered in Ferrara prompts my concern about another matter that upsets me greatly. All day today the financial administrators have been going around issuing an order to the citizens: namely, that within two days everyone must have presented to the civic Treasury the moneys owed from the tax recently levied by the Duke. As if we were all bankers with money in a safe! The entire population from top to bottom is badmouthing the situation and worse. I have heard some of them say that if Your Excellency were at home, these things would not be happening. Furthermore, they have said that since Your Excellency negotiated the agreements between the Duke and the King of France and the Emperor, necessity would have you return to Ferrara to negotiate between the people and the Duke. In addition to this tax, another burden has been levied on the feudal dependants, which is approximately one-fourth of their income. I am referring to all those who receive something from the House of Este as feudal dependants. But this does not apply to me because I do not receive anything of consequence. If I did, however, it would not bother me to go ahead and pay. Before I went to Nonantula, one day I heard a gang of farmers lamenting to Messer Antonio de’ Costabili about the unending duties they have to

29

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

fulfil for the state that increase every day. They were threatening to leave Ferrarese territory. And I heard a keeper of the dikes swear that under his watch three or four families had already fled. In Ferrara even in public people are speculating (but I do not pretend to know this with certainty) that by Christmas Messer Antonio will be dismissed from his position as judge on the high court. Speculation has it that Benedetto Brugia will take his place.5 Those who believe that such a thing will happen speculate at length as to the effects of such a change. I am writing about these tedious things to Your Lordship because I do  not have anything pleasant to recount. To you I humbly commend myself. Ferrara, 22 October 1509. Of the Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord Your Faithful Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 5 to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este Ariosto sends details from Rome on potential commanders of the papal troops in Emilia, where the papal forces are exerting pressure to extend the Church’s territories further north. He reports that the Pope is delighted with the Estense victory over the Venetians at Polesella. He alludes to the celebratory passage in Furioso 46.97, where he makes reference to the battle in the poem’s final genealogical ecphrasis.

To My Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord, My Singular Lord, Lord Cardinal Estense. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious Lord. To the Lord Cardinal Regino6 I made known your wish that Messer Giovanni7 take command of the company that was in the hands of Count Mirandola.8 In addition, wherever it was possible for me to do so, I recommended the aforementioned Giovanni, whom the Lord Cardinal hardly knew. Due to his affection for you, His Lordship has offered to do everything within his power to satisfy your request, although he is not very hopeful. Because a little earlier at the behest of the Lord of Pesaro,9 he spoke with His Holiness of Our Lord10 to the effect that the Lord of Pesaro take over that command, which the Pope rejected. There is therefore speculation that

30

Letters

the Pope intends to give the position to one of his own men. Nevertheless, I will not hold back from doing everything in order to satisfy Your Lordship. Incidentally, on the day that I arrived here, Count Ludovico da Canossa said to me that the Pope had chosen Lord Octaviano Fulgoso to replace Count Mirandola and that subsequently he appeared to regret the choice.11 He was thinking about splitting that command among several people. Since I left Ferrara, it has rained day and night. Between here and Ferrara all the rivers are up over their banks such that it is very dangerous to move around. For this reason, Your Lordship will excuse me if I am a little late in returning, since I am reluctant to return under such conditions, given the risk of drowning that I ran on the way down here. Today we received the news that Your Lordship and the Duke have routed the Venetian fleet in the Po, which as far as I could judge pleased the papal court. When His Holiness came out, the Lord Cardinal Regino found that by chance Cardinal Cornaro had described the event in careful detail. I was especially happy for the news because, in addition to the public benefit, my Muse will have a story to paint on the tent of my Ruggiero praising Your Lordship anew, to whom I commend myself. Rome, 25 December 1509. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 6 to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este Ariosto writes from Reggio on the movement of papal troops in the area.12

To My Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord, My Singular Lord, Cardinal Estense, etc. In Parma. My Most Illustrious Lord. Lorenzo de’ Pasti just now arrived here in the citadel, where I was speaking with the captain. He told me that en route he encountered a spy who led him to believe that as soon as our forces leave Carpi, forces in Modena are ready to come to Reggio, leaving, I believe, Rubera behind. And because Lorenzo worried that if he went to Carpi first and then returned to Sassuolo and Rubera, he would be delayed in bringing aid, he changed his plan. He sent a

31

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

letter by courier to Lord Aenea13 informing him of the situation and of Your Lordship’s opinion about placing 200 infantrymen from Rubera and Sassuolo in this citadel. Therefore, in order not to lose time, Lord Aenea must ask for permission from the Monsignor in charge of the French troops,14 and immediately send the letter to Sassuolo, where Lorenzo will be tonight. Thus, the messenger sent to Lord Aenea is already on his way and likewise to Lorenzo, having departed just before sunset.15 The captain here at the citadel requests that Your Lordship help him by sending some of your troops to stay here with him for four or five days until we see how these things turn out. He is asking for men like Domenighino, Iacomo da la Sale, Pier Moro, Francesco Maria da Sassuolo, whom one can trust and value. Lorenzo de’ Pasti has already guaranteed that he will come tomorrow to Your Lordship, to whom I commend myself. Reggio, October 1510. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 7 to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este An update on the territorial dispute with Carpi. The secretive, elusive tone of this letter is typical of many of Ariosto’s missives to his Estense patrons. For fear that the letter might be intercepted, it is written so as to reveal as little as possible.

To the Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord, My Singular Lord, Lord Cardinal Estense. In Parma. As swiftly as possible by courier. My Most Illustrious Lord. When I was in Reggio yesterday, I learned that Lord Alberto was in Carpi.16 Wanting to go meet him, I was advised that the papal cavalry had ridden to Coreggio and that they had taken a young son of Lord Borso17 and that they had then ridden to San Martino, traversing the two roads that lead from Reggio to Carpi. And because of this, I immediately sent by the courier routes a man on foot with a letter to Lord Alberto advising him that I need to speak to him about a very important matter, specifically that very same subject we often spoke about in Rome. In the letter I did not mention Your Lordship and I requested that he choose a place where I might

32

Letters

safely speak with him. If not, then I asked that he perhaps send one of his confidants whom I know with an official letter. While I am waiting for him to send me one of his confidants, may Your Lordship advise me concerning what I can speak with him about. And to Your Lordship I commend myself. This past night the papal cavalry rode to San Martino and this morning they came within two miles of Reggio rustling cattle. The reports are that Badino scuffled with them and they took two or three crossbowmen from him. [Reggio, 30 October 1510.]18 Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 8 to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este Report on further negotiations with Carpi and on the preparation of allied French troops quartered in Reggio.

To the Most Reverend and Illustrious Lord, My Singular Lord, Lord Cardinal Estense, etc. In Parma. As swiftly as possible. Most Illustrious Lord. I worry that my messenger, who is the type to return home quickly, may have been captured because he still has not come back even though I dispatched him yesterday at midafternoon. Indeed, if this is the case, it is no less harm to me than if I had been taken in his place. The enemies have ridden to within a mile of Reggio, still on the road to Carpi, and they have led away a large number of livestock. Our French soldiers have finally armed themselves or rather they are arming themselves now. Even if they go out, I do not think that they will be going soon enough. While writing this letter, I heard that Messer Sigismondo de’ Santi, Secretary of Lord Alberto da Carpi, arrived, and I went to speak to him. I learned that he has a commission to come to see Your Lordship. He probably got his orders from the Monsignor in charge. I asked him if it was for our affairs and he said that it was for that same situation for which I had been sent to him. Wherefore tomorrow we are coming. From what I understand from him, he has the most recent proposal of His Lord concerning the situation, etc. When I returned home, I found a troop of French soldiers leading around thirty prisoners, regular

33

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

papal soldiers and light cavalry captured at Santa Agata, a place near San Faustino. Those soldiers who went toward San Martino have yet to return. Reports have it – but I do not think they are true – that our soldiers here with those of Badino have several cavalrymen at San Martino under siege. By now I am sure that my messenger has been captured because it is nearly sundown and he still is not back. To Your Lordship I commend myself. Reggio, 30 October 1510. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 9 to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este On the difficulties the citizens of Reggio must endure because of the French soldiers stationed there.

To the Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord, My Singular Lord, Lord Cardinal Estense, etc. By courier. In Parma. As swiftly as possible. My Most Illustrious Lord. This morning there was a meeting of twelve of the leading citizens of Reggio, who have been elected by their fellow citizens to be overseers of the war. I spoke to them in accordance with your wishes, urging them to elect five or six men to work closely with the Monsignor. They informed me that they have already taken care of appointing a larger number than this. First they assigned the concession for assisting and selling bread to the soldiers to two citizens who have two servants with them.19 They gave the responsibility for wine to Zan Iacomo Messore, granting him legal rights and a licence to distribute to everyone in the area. They granted responsibility for grain to a certain Zan Francesco Camonchiela, who has two partners. Concerning the peasants employed to destroy fortifications,20 they legislated that every farming community provide some, with Zan Baptista Cassola and two servants responsible for that. Beyond this, they gave him the responsibility of keeping the Monsignor informed about what is happening and of keeping the community notified as needed. And yesterday, in fact, he went to do this. They keep four butchers busy in the military camp as well as sellers of other stuff. Throughout the countryside they have placed a large order for

34

Letters

food to be sent to the camp in abundance and there are officials paid to see that this happens. As for sending other people in addition to these men to stay in touch with the Monsignor in charge, everyone really pulled back, adding that it is not possible to endure a greater burden than they already have. All these men and the servants who have accompanied them are a great expense to the community. Moreover, given how badly the French treat them, there are few people who want to assume these responsibilities because in exchange for selling their goods they are often beaten to a pulp. They have informed me further that there is great difficulty in finding grain to send to the camp, because, first, the farmers have none, having already paid and given to the Duke that which is owed to him each year. The town-dwellers for their part hide what they have or refuse to give it out. And this has happened because earlier a unit was worth ten soldi and now it brings half that since they cannot sell in the camp for more than nine soldi and when they have taken it into the camp the soldiers buy it according to the weights and measurements of Rubera, which are greater than those of Reggio. Further, they pay with metal coins, not gold, and they want the deal to follow Parma’s ways, which according to their logic (that I hardly understand at all) gives them back a return at a great loss. It is much better for them to sell their grain here in Reggio than to pick up the expense of sending it into the camp at such a loss. In addition, everyone thinks that once the military has decamped, grain will be worth much in Reggio, and in the hopes of selling it later, they keep it hidden. And if they had leave to sell their stuff at its proper price, they would take it willingly where it has value in the hopes of making a profit, with grain as with other things. Beyond these points, it would be necessary to oversee that the drivers who go into the camp are safe. The French often take their oxen from them and make them work on something else. Moreover, they break up the cartons in which they transported their goods and burn them. This has also happened to the devastators whom the soldiers force to clean their stalls. So whoever goes into the military camp once never wants to return a second time. Thus they flee. In order for the local community to keep a cart it must send crossbowmen to recapture them with force. I have proof of this behaviour. They would like Your

35

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Lordship to write to Count Zan Boiardo21 and ask him to have his wine shipped into the camp, since he has a large quantity from his land and he is closer to the camp. In the same vein they would like you to write to Lord Messer Hercole22 of San Martino and Campogaiano and to those men who have fortified houses in the area around Manfredi asking them all to help by sending provisions to the camp because Reggio and its surrounding area by itself will not have enough to provide everything. This is especially true for bread because beyond the other inconveniences there are very few ovens in this area. Of all these things I give notification to Your Lordship, who will act according to your judgment. As for sending other people into the camp, they proudly ask to be excused, and they have requested that I notify you of what they have done hoping that you will be satisfied. If Your Lordship wishes to insist once again that they send others, let me know, and I will see to it. But it seems that it will be difficult to get them to act. I await the answer of Your Lordship, to whom I commend myself. Some news has just now arrived here and report is that it is true: 500 Spanish soldiers have fled from the Pope’s army to our camp. [Early November 1510.]23 Your Faithful Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Moreover, they would like Your Lordship to send someone here with authority and the licence to command all the nobles and feudal dependants to pay their share as needed because the captain does not have this authority. Letter 10 to the Secretaries of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este Ariosto requests information on his financial status, specifically his salary and credit, with his patron.24

To the Magnificent Ones, like Brothers Worthy of Honour, Messers Benedetto Fantino and Scipione Urso, Secretaries of the Most Illustrious Cardinal Estense. In Parma. My Messers Benedetto and Scipione, Worthy of Honour. I have recently written to Postumo25 concerning a very important situation about which I had to speak, but I have not had any response from

36

Letters

him. For this reason I have come to the conclusion that he may not be in Parma because I could not imagine that he might be so haughty in his interaction with me as to avoid responding (although he did not deign to eat at our poorly prepared table). So, assuming that he is not there, I will impose on you since I have served you more than willingly in moments of greater need. I am aware of the great amount of work that you always have. But if you excuse me, taking into consideration whichever of you cares most about me or for whom it is the easiest, I would like to ask one of you to deign to speak to the Lord and have His Lordship understand that I am still owed the better part of my salary from 1509. Since I want to be paid and bearing in mind that this is not the best time to be demanding money from his Lordship, I request that you have someone write to Messer Theodosio and have him see to it that I am paid the remaining amount of money I am owed.26 It is true that coming here I have been paid with the advance from last year but I had shouldered so many debts that I had to repay that I do not have any money now. It might be necessary for me to take on something extra to be in better shape for this summer than I was for the winter. Without this I am in trouble. To return to Parma again with nothing but a leather cloak would make me the butt of jokes. But jokes aside, I beg you, whether it seems that one of you or both of you together should do it, speak to Our Lord so that my problem is resolved. Once you have made the request, immediately in the name of His Lordship, let Messer Theodosio see what you have written. But keep from publicizing the request so that the entire court does not hear of it before you have even asked. To you, Messer Scipione, I am deeply grateful for the duty that you undertake for me and I am most obliged. If Galasso had been in Ferrara, I  would have asked him for the ring, but he had left many days earlier. Furthermore, since I would like to trick someone who would like to trick me, if you answer this letter, attach this specific ending to it: I  spoke to the Lord concerning the payment of the tithe. His Lordship says that you may go with Messer Theodosio, who, I believe, will willingly oblige, if he is able. And in much gratitude to you both equally I commend myself. [spring 1511]

37

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 11 to Giovanni de’ Medici Ariosto congratulates Giovanni on being appointed to the position of papal legate in Bologna and requests the dispensation of certain ecclesiastical benefits he is owed.

To the Most Reverend Lord and Father in Christ, My Most Honourable Lord, Cardinal of the Medici, Most Dignified Legate in Bologna, etc. My Most Reverend and Honourable Lord. My service and obedience extended to Your Most Reverend Lordship for a long time, and the love and kindness that you have always shown me, embolden me to have direct recourse to you without intermediaries in the hope of obtaining from you a special favour. And when I learned recently that Your Most Reverend Lordship was made the papal legate for Bologna, I was as happy as I would have been had my patron, the Cardinal of the Este, been appointed legate. I felt thus because for every benefit and honour of Your Lordship I am consistently so desirous and eager as much as a true and affectionate servant must be at every exaltation of his patron; and also because it seems to me that for my every need I have Your Lordship so propitious and favourable as much as a grateful patron is indebted to his most faithful servant. Therefore I formally request that Your Most Reverend Lordship officially dispense a statement that waives the claims against a third benefice, and inasmuch as you are authorized to do so, in actuality and with greater dignity, use full and appropriate language to delay the beneficiary going forward to take Sacred Orders for as long as possible.27 I am confident that in the court of Your Most Reverend Lordship there will be someone who will know how to prepare the official bull better than I know how to ask for it. The archpriest of Sant’Agata,28 who is like a father to me and whom I greatly love for his merits, is the bearer of this letter.29 He will come to Your Lordship in order to present the evidence for my becoming the beneficiary of Sant’Agata. It will negate the need to have the official supplication made for that which I am asking. I request that Your Most Reverend Lordship speed up the process at no charge and I ask that you forgive me if I seem too arrogant. My affection and service toward you and the memory that I have of your many gifts embolden me to ask

38

Letters

much greater things than these (even though these seem very great) with the certitude of obtaining them. May Your Lordship, to whom I commend myself, humbly remember that I am a most devoted servant. Ferrara, 25 November 1511. Of the Most Reverend Lord Your Most Devoted and Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Ferrarese. Letter 12 to Francesco II Gonzaga On Francesco’s request to read some of the Orlando Furioso before it goes to press.30

To the Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Most Worthy Lord, Lord Marquis of Mantua. In Mantua. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. First from Molino and then Jerondeo I have learned that Your Excellency would be pleased to see a book of mine which I started a long time ago (continuing the invention31 of Count Matteo Maria Boiardo). Good and most devoted servant of Your Lordship that I am, I would have satisfied you at the first request and considered it an honour that you might deign to read anything of mine, if the book were in a state suitable enough to be handed over to you. But not only is the book not yet polished or finished, as befits a big book that requires much work; it is still written in such a way with endless glosses and erasures and passages transposed here and there that it would be impossible for anyone other than me to read it. And to this fact Your Most Illustrious Consort, the Lady Marquise can bear witness, to whom (when she was recently in Ferrara) I read a bit of it. But most disposed to the service of Your Excellency as I am, I will try as soon as possible to see to it that you receive at least a part of it. And I will have those sections copied, starting from the beginning, which seem to me to be not too bad. Once they are written, I will send them to Your Most Illustrious Lordship, to whom I humbly commend myself. Ferrara, 14 July 1512. Most Devoted Servant of Your Lordship Ludovico Ariosto.

39

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 13 to Ludovico Gonzaga On how Alfonso d’Este escaped from the papal forces in Rome after his failed attempt at diplomacy and then travelled in disguise with Ariosto to Florence.32

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, Most Worthy of Honour, Prince Ludovico Gonzaga. In Mantua. Your Most Excellent Lordship must have something of the fairy or the magician or of some other being more powerful, with your letter of 20 August coming to find me here as I have just now emerged from the hideouts and dens of wild beasts and returned to the civil society of men. Of our dangers I cannot yet speak: the mind shudders to remember, and it takes refuge from the pain. On the other hand, Your Lordship will have already heard about it: Which place, which land does not resound with our troubles? As regards me, my fear has not yet subsided, since I find myself still being hunted, tracked by greyhounds, from whom may the Lord God help us escape. With my nobleman in disguise, I spent the night in a rural refuge near Florence, my ears pricked up and my heart thumping. Who by telling such things, etc. The Most Illustrious Lord Duke, with whom Count Pianelli conferred at length yesterday, will speak of the two affairs to the Cardinal,33 who is expected to arrive in Bologna in a matter of days. And I myself, inasmuch as it is good to be able to serve you, will be as careful as I can, especially desirous of the honour of being an affectionate servant of Your Lordship. From Messer Rainaldo34 you will learn about what we hope will be done. I trust that you will be satisfied, although I am not a very accomplished diplomat. In any case, the sky remains ominous, wherefore we will not set out on the road immediately so as not to have to disguise ourselves again in masks (out of season) and with pilgrims’ walking sticks. May Your Lordship please remember me to the Most Illustrious Lady, Princess Flisca, as much as is permissible for a most observant and dedicated servant. And to you both in gratitude I commend myself. Florence, 1 October 1512. Of the Most Excellent Lordship Your Humble and Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto.

40

Letters

Letter 14 to Benedetto Fantino Ariosto writes from Rome, where he has received an unexpectedly cold welcome by the new Pope, Leo X, his one-time friend, Giovanni de’ Medici.35

To Messer Benedetto Fantino, like a Brother Worthy of Honour, Secretary36 of the Most Illustrious and Reverend Cardinal of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Benedetto Worthy of Honour. From my servant I received a letter of yours very late because he came from Florence on foot. He had stopped there for several days and he spent a very long time on the road. I have not done anything yet about your business, not because I forgot about it but because I did not really know where to start. I arrived here dressed like a courier and without the right clothes I have been reluctant to pay visits to the local dignitaries. Here more than anywhere else you are not worth anything unless you dress nicely. It is true that I kissed the Pope’s feet and he appeared willing to give me an audience. But I do not think that he actually saw me since now that he is Pope he does not use his eyeglass any more. I did not receive a single offer, not from His Holiness nor from my friends who have recently assumed positions of importance,37 all of whom seem to be as nearsighted as the Pope. Beginning today so that it not stretch out forever, I will try to see if I can make some headway with that man Messer Paris.38 I think it would be difficult to use Messer Bernardo39 as a go-between because he is such a big shot and so difficult to get hold of. Both because he is always surrounded by such a large circle of people that it is hard to get to him and because you have to knock on 20 doors before you end up where he is. All this is so odious to me that I do not know if and when I might see him. Nor do I even try to see him or anyone else who lives in that palace. Yet for the sake of our friendship I will try to overcome my natural inclination, but do not expect much since I intend to come back to Ferrara once the papal coronation is over, 4 days from now. I gather that in Ferrara people reckon I am a big shot here. I beg you to dispel this error, at least with those with whom you happen to talk, and explain to them that I am

41

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

much less here than I ever was in Ferrara. So much less that if they ask me to take care of something for them here, I am unable to do it. But without understanding my circumstances, they then accuse me of being rude. Nothing else is happening here except that I commend myself to you. Rome, 7 April 1513 Yours, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 15 to Francesco II Gonzaga Ariosto writes for Ippolito, requesting permission to ship paper needed for printing his poem across Gonzaga territory.

My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, Brother-in-law, and Lord Most Worthy of Honour, Lord Marquis of Mantua. In Mantua. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, Brother-in-law, and Lord Most Worthy of Honour. Being on the verge of having a book by my servant Messer Ludovico Ariosto printed and needing therefore one thousand reams of paper, I am sending to you the bearer of this letter to bring back from Salò a part of the order now and as soon as he has delivered it to go back again and get the rest – either him or another – until I have this entire amount. I beg that for your love of me Your Excellency be content to commission that your officials allow the paper to pass through without any customs fee or other impediment. Whenever necessary he will display the permit granted him until he has delivered the quantity of one thousand reams, which I need for this undertaking. And Your Excellency must carry this out willingly because you will have your fair share of pleasure from it too. When you read the book you will find that you are praised in more than one place. And even if the praise does not reach the heights of Your Excellency’s merits, at least it goes as far as the powers of the poet could muster. May these things work out well for you, to whom I always commend myself. Ferrara, 17 September 1515. Servant and Brother-in-Law, Ippolito, Cardinal of the Este

42

Letters

Letter 16 to the Doge of Venice, Lorenzo Loredan Ariosto requests that all the privileges and copyright pertaining to the publication of the Orlando Furioso be honoured in Venetian territory.

To My Most Illustrious and Serene Prince and My Lord Most Worthy of Honour. I, Your Devoted and Most Affectionate Servant, Ludovico Ariosto, a nobleman from Ferrara and a member of the court of the Most Reverend Lord, Cardinal Estense, make the following appeal to Your Highness. Since through my long vigils and labours for the delight and enjoyment of lords and people of noble spirit and ladies, I have composed a work dealing with pleasant and delightful things concerning war and love, and since I desire to bring it to light for the enjoyment and pleasure of whoever may want to read it and may delight in doing so, and also since that greater benefit and repayment for my labours took more years in composing it than I can recoup, I have decided to have it printed where it might seem best to me. But fearing lest someone else, competing with the publication as soon as it is out in printed form, undertake to reprint it again and again and receive the good and benefit of my labours that should come to me, I therefore beg and request Your Highness with your decree and privilege that you agree to grant me the concession that for the rest of my life no one be allowed, neither Venetian citizen nor foreigner of whatever rank he may wish to be or actually is, in the lands, places, and dominion of Your Highness, that no one dare or presume to print it or to have it printed in any form – not in large format, small, very small. Nor will anyone be able to sell or sponsor the selling of my aforementioned work without my express consent and permission, being the author of said work, Ludovico Ariosto, under penalty of losing all such copies that are found to have been printed or are up for sale. The penalty for each person who presumes to print it or have it printed, to sell it or have it sold, shall be one thousand ducats and Your Highness can do what he likes with half the money; the other half (along with the books printed or sold) will come to me, Ludovico, your highly recommended servant. In whose favour etc. 25 October 1515.

43

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 17 to the Doge of Genoa, Ottaviano Fregoso Ariosto requests that all the privileges and copyright pertaining to his poem be honoured in Genoese territory.

To the Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Lord, Lord Most Worthy of Honour, Ottaviano Fregoso, Doge of Genoa. In Genoa. To My Most Illustrious Lord Worthy of Honour. When I began to have that book of mine printed, which Your Excellency earlier, at the time when I saw you in Urbino and Rome, expressed a courteous desire to see finished, I was afraid that the book would turn out incorrect due to the errors of printers. From the Pope, the King of France, and the Doge (and I hope to get further support from other men of power) I have obtained the following: that as long as I live no one has the right to print and sell it without my permission. Now being a most devoted servant of Your Excellency and having great faith in you, I take this liberty to beseech you also to grant me this concession along the same lines. I am not familiar with anyone whom I might ask to take care of this. So, may Your Excellency with your usual kindness deign to commission one of your own to take care of it as my advocate. If that person could send me as quickly as possible either a statement of copyright, or a letter of licence, or a rescript expedited in the proper form,40 or in whatever way seems most appropriate to Your Excellency. It should read that as long as I live no one is permitted, not in Genoa or any lands subject to Genoese rule, to print or have printed, to sell or sponsor the selling of this book that I call Orlando Furioso without my express permission. The penalty for doing so would be to lose all the copies of the work and to pay for each with four or five ducats, more or less. It should be applied in the manner that best suits Your Excellency. In exchange for this concession I will be forever and greatly obliged to you.41 To whom I note that I am a most loyal servant and I endlessly commend myself to you. Ferrara, 27 February 1516. Of the Most Illustrious Lordship Your Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto.

44

Letters

Letter 18 A letter of recommendation from Ippolito to an unnamed priest.

To the Most Reverend Father. Reverend Father in Christ like unto a dearest Brother. We greatly love Brother Anselmo de’ Conti from Padua both for his virtues and for his father and relatives with whom we are very close. We are eager to grant him every favour. And for this reason, as much as possible we commend him to your Reverend Father. For the love of us, may you favour him and hold him in the number of your most dear. Where possible, show him goodness and honour. Please do it and know that all that you do for him, we will be grateful as if it had been done for us. And to you, Most Reverend Father, we offer ourselves and commend ourselves: may this thing work out well. Ferrara, 10 June 1516. Ippolito, Cardinal of the Este Letter 19 to Isabella d’Este Gonzaga Ariosto requests permission to transport wine and other merchandise over Gonzaga territory for Ippolito d’Este.

To the Most Illustrious and Excellent Lady, My Most Honourable Lady, the Lady Marquise of Mantua, etc. In Mantua. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lady. Recently when I happened to be going to Milan, My Illustrious and Most Reverend Patron, the Cardinal, brother of Your Excellency, commissioned me at my return (which I had to do by boat) that I drop off a certain quantity of wine and other supplies, which I handed over to his representative42 for His Lordship’s use. And so coming through the territories of the King of France up to this point here in Viadana, I have transported the aforementioned supplies without paying any customs fees and without impediment due to a licence that I have from the Savoy officials. Now that I am in Viadana, the customs officials of the Most Illustrious Lord Marquis are pressuring me to pay. I would have paid immediately

45

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

rather than bother Your Excellency but I was afraid I might do something to displease you. And so I reached a compromise with the officials to write to Your Excellency and if you do not respond concerning what we should do, my shipper has promised to satisfy them when he returns. Thus it seemed I should notify Your Excellency, who will deal with this in the way that seems best. I will deal with the other custom fees in Mantuan territories similarly if the officials do not want to let me pass through freely. That is, I will promise that my shipper will satisfy their demands upon his return. Your Excellency should not forget that I am your devoted servant and I humbly commend myself to you. Viadana, 21 November 1516. Of Your Excellency Your Humble and Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 20 to Ruffino Belingerio Drafts of letters of recommendation for appointees to the position of notary for the Estense representative in Milan to review.

To the Venerable and Most Dear to us, Lord Ruffino Belingerio, Our Representative, from Ippolito d’Este, Deacon Cardinal of Santa Lucia in Selci. Venerable and most dear to us. We send you here enclosed the copies of two letters that Messer Ludovico has had written for us: one to you and the other to our auxiliary bishop for the use of the chancery of our archbishopric in Milan. And since we do not want to do anything contrary to justice, nor give any cause for a person to lament with good reason about us, it seemed that we should send you the copies before sending the letters. In this way you will see them and you will notify us immediately whether or not such letters are justified. Regarding this situation we will act in accordance with your response. Fare well. Ferrara, 29 November 1516. To our representative, etc. In order that no one intervene in the affairs of the chancery of our archbishopric in Milan, other than Messers Paolo Rena and Philippo

46

Letters

da Calcano, whom Messer Ludovico Ariosto has appointed (by the authority vested in him through us) to run the chancery, we would like you to issue an edict on our behalf stating, namely, that no other notary except the aforementioned Messers Paolo and Philippo or their substitutes may intervene in any document pertaining to said chancery, especially concerning the bestowal and institutionalization of benefices in the city and diocese of Milan under penalty of voiding the protocol and contract and under additional penalty of fifty gold ducats to be paid by each of the violators, half to be distributed to the archbishop’s refectory and the other half to the chancery. In this way you will bear in mind not to interject your authority into any contract unless one of the aforementioned officers attests to its execution according to the normal procedure, etc. To our auxiliary Bishop, etc. Because we are pleased for members of our court, to whom we have granted access to the chancery of the archbishopric of Milan, and from it to have the maximum profit they can honestly and justly have, it seemed that we should notify Your Eminence to state that we are greatly pleased to help them wherever possible. And this will involve not letting the time pass by for the usual holy ordinations. Furthermore, please know that we do not in any way want to admit any other notary to our chancery than our own, that is, Messers Paolo Rena and Philippo da Calcano, or their substitutes. Even though we are aware that you would not have done otherwise, we wanted to notify you all the same, so that you might do it more willingly, knowing what is on our mind. Fare well, etc. Letter 21 to Alfonso d’Este Having been sent to Florence to attend the funeral of the Duchess of Urbino, Maddalena de la Tour d’Auvergne, wife of Lorenzo de’ Medici (grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent), Ariosto informs his patron of the sudden death of Lorenzo himself and asks for instructions on how to respond on behalf of the Estense government. The courtier in Ariosto wants to get it right.

47

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Most Singular Lord, Lord Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. As swiftly as possible. To My Most Illustrious Lord. I arrived in Florence just now in the middle of the afternoon and I have found out that the Duke of Urbino died this morning. I am now very uncertain as to how to proceed. I am not sure to whom I should go to express my condolences over the death of the Duchess, especially since with the importance of the Duke’s death it seems that everyone has forgotten their grief over the Duchess. For now I have decided to await further orders from Your Excellency. In the meantime I am hiding out at Messer Piero Antonio’s, appearing to offer my condolences to the Medici Cardinal43 and to Luigi de’ Rossi (the former is already here and the latter is expected today or tomorrow), so that I may perform appropriate duties for both. And even if it appears to Your Excellency that I should do only that for which I was sent, I will be able to say that I had come to express my condolences for the death of the Duchess but having seen this new situation, I held back so as not to be obtrusive. Thus may Your Excellency advise me on how much I have to do. If I fail for not having done that which I was commissioned to do, may you forgive me because I only did what I did in order to do a good job. In gratitude to Your Most Illustrious Lordship I commend myself. Florence, 4 May [1519] Your Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 22 to Francesco II Gonzaga On Francesco’s request to read Ariosto’s play The Coffer (La Cassaria), which he had composed in prose in 1507–8. 44

To the Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince, Most Honourable Lord, Lord Marquis of Mantua. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Responding promptly to Your Lordship’s order, I send you The Coffer because you consider it an item worthy of coming into your hands. I delayed somewhat in sending it because I could not find anyone who could transcribe it for me so quickly. In whatever condition Your Excellency finds the play, may

48

Letters

you accept it with the kindness with which you are wont to look over other whimsical writings of mine. I commend myself to you in humble good grace and I beseech you to consider it appropriate to order me wherever you think it best for me to serve. Ferrara, 6 June 1519 Of Your Lordship Your Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 23 to Francesco II Gonzaga Ariosto announces and laments the death of his cousin, Rinaldo.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, Most Honourable, the Lord Marquis of Mantua. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Because I believe that Your Excellency very much loved Messer Rainaldo Ariosto, your great servant who was my first cousin, I would seem to commit a great error if I did not notify you that this morning he passed from this life. In four days he was spent, once he returned from the baths at Caldera. He has left all of us, his friends and relatives, feeling terrible, especially his wife, Madonna Contarina. Although she has suffered much and is in such great pain that I fear she might die soon after him, nevertheless she did not forget to beseech me to notify Your Excellency, for she believes that you will share in her grief. In gratitude she and I together kiss your hands and commend ourselves to Your Excellency. Ferrara, 7 July 1519. Of Your Excellency Your Most Dedicated Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 24 to Isabella d’Este Gonzaga Ariosto announces the death of his cousin, Rinaldo. Isabella’s status requires that she receive her own notification of Rinaldo’s death, but the notification also suggests the extent to which she may have been close to Rinaldo. The rather personal detail on his illness, which does

49

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

not appear in the letter to Isabella’s husband, hints even further at a degree of intimacy.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lady, Most Honourable Lady Marquise of Mantua, etc. In Mantua. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lady. With utmost seriousness and overwhelming regret I am notifying Your Excellency that Messer Rainaldo Ariosto, my honoured first cousin and your most faithful servant, this morning passed from the present life. He was suffering from a malady that had struck him swiftly; he could not urinate. And in four days he was stolen from us, leaving us as devastated as possible in this world, especially Madonna Contarina his wife. She has beseeched me to notify Your Excellency, certain that you will take pity on her and that you will share to some degree in her grief. In gratitude to Your Excellency she, together with me, commend ourselves humbly. Ferrara, 7 July 1519. Of Your Excellency Your Most Dedicated Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 25 to Antonio Strozzi Ariosto seeks counsel on how to deal with complications surrounding the inheritance of his cousin Rinaldo. It is interesting to see how he takes the details of his family’s rather complicated and unfortunate situation and veils them somewhat to create a readable narrative. Manfredo stands for Rinaldo; Iacomo stands for Rinaldo’s father, Francesco.

To My Magnificent Messer Antonio Strozzi, Greater Most Honourable, etc. In Florence. Magnificent Lord, Greater and Most Honourable to me. Having found someone else’s codicil, I am sending a copy to Your Honour with the names changed since it was not made for me and I do not want to harm anyone by publicizing it. I did not want to entrust my discussion of it to a lawyer in Ferrara, thus I send it to you, not so much because you are not from Ferrara as for the goodwill that you have always shown me. I have faith that you will advise in the strictest confidence

50

Letters

and that you will keep this secret since the codicil is not made for me. Your Honour will see the situation described in the codicil, which is the following. To begin with, Manfredo has died and I am his legal heir since he died intestate without a will in place. I enter into possession of the inheritance, which has been inventoried because this inheritance is the sort that has been encumbered with much debt especially concerning the dowries of three wives that he had and of his three daughters, to each of whom he promised two thousand ducats. He also mismanaged many of his possessions. First I would like to understand if through the legality of this trust I might be able to deny the payment of these dowries because there are not enough financial resources to pay them without selling property and the houses that belonged to Iacomo. Also, I would like to know if in accordance with this trust, I am able to reclaim the property sold and transferred to another person. Manfredo is survived by his mother, Agnete, who has to be as per the will supported by the trust for the rest of her life. I am the successor to her as the nearest of kin. This is what I would first like to have clarified. I would also like to understand what happens given that Manfredo has died intestate without a will and without leaving any legitimate or illegitimate sons, or sons recognized as legitimate, as survivors. It is true that there are two young boys, one of whom was born to a mistress he kept when he was married to his second wife and the other to the same woman after his wife had died. But he never made any signs to accept these children as his sons. On the contrary, when he was taken to task by someone for letting them wander around in rags and for not sending them to school, he did not make any sign of affection for them, nor did he signal that he accepted them as his own children. Rather, he answered that he did not consider them to be his children because their mother was worthless and he knew her through all the servants that he had to support in his household. It is true that the first boy spent much time in his house as a servant, leading mules and performing other duties like the other servants. And at some point in the past, he ran away and he was taken in by someone from around here, and for now with Manfredo’s death, he has found a place with others. No witness will ever be found who could say that Manfredo called him

51

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

his son, nor that the boy called him his father. That which can be found in his favour is that Manfredo sometimes said: ‘If he were to turn out to be a good man, I would make him an overseer of the household.’ This is as much as concerns the first of the two children. The other, having been raised by the wet nurse from when he was a baby, spent very little time in Manfredo’s house. Manfredo asked one of his servants who had a wife to take the baby home. And when the boy had reached the age of about seven, Manfredo placed him with the Franciscans in the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, where he is at present. But he has not taken his vows because he is not yet ten years old. To this child Manfredo also always paid scarce attention and he said that he was not his son, just as he always said about the other one. This is as much of this situation that concerns me, pro and contra. May Your Honour deign, for the love you bear me, to think over these issues a bit and then advise me as to how I should proceed. If such an inheritance should give me more frustration and harm than pleasure and good, I would back off from the undertaking. Nothing else is happening here at the moment. To Your Honour and to the Magnificent Madonna Antonia, your wife, and to our friends I offer my service and commend myself. Ferrara, 11 July 1519 Of Your Magnificence Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 26 to Mario Equicola45 Ariosto thanks his friend for help with legal questions. He refers to a poetic ode that Mario would like him to send and he confirms that he is revising the Furioso despite the problems caused by the Estense rulers who have confiscated some of his family’s land.46

To the Magnificent and Most Learned Man, Lord Mario Equicola, Most Worthy of Honour to me, etc. In Mantua. My Most Respected Messer Mario. I thank Your Lordship much for your offer of help, since I happen to be in legal disputes. I accept your offer wholeheartedly and I believe I will use it. But it will not suffice

52

Letters

for me to put these matters in writing about which I have asked; I have in mind to come to Mantua one day and explain to you clearly what I want. But now is still not the right time. Concerning the ode you have asked me about, I will look for it among my poorly organized compositions and I will polish it up a bit as best I know how and send it to you. It is true that I am making a bit of an addition to my Orlando Furioso, that is, I began to, but then the Duke on one side, the Cardinal on the other, have caused me to think of things other than fairy tales. The Duke took away a piece of property that had been in my family for more than three hundred years and his brother confiscated another one worth nearly ten thousand ducats. It is a done deal with no chance for me to argue my case. And yet I do not stop for this reason from continuing often with some little thing. If I keep on, I will not forget to pay my debt. And all the better that I have not paid it fully in the past, since this debt from that time to today has grown infinitely. Messer Mario, rest assured that I am yours, first by natural inclination already shared for a long time, then because of your worthy actions toward me. To you I commend myself and I beg you to deign sometimes to remind the Lady Marquise that I am her most devoted servant. Also please remember me to the Magnificent Calandra.47 Ferrara, 15 October 1519 Yours, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 27 to Pope Leo X Ariosto befriended the Pope when he was Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici; see letters 11 and 14. As requested, the poet sends the Pope a copy of his comedy The Necromancer. The Pope, however, did not have the work produced and it would not be staged until 1528 (letter 213).

To our Most Holy Lord, Leo X. Most Blessed Father. In the past few days I learned from my brother, Galasso, that Your Holiness would be pleased for me to send a comedy of mine that I have close to hand.48 I had set that comedy aside a long time ago almost with the attitude that I would not even finish it because I truly could not get it to work out as I wished. I was not sure if I had to

53

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

make an excuse for not having finished it since in order to present it on stage for this carnival season there was but little time. I feel this way fearing the judgment of the learned men of Rome, and more than theirs, your judgment, since you will recognize clearly where the play sins and I will not be able to use the excuse that it was rushed. Then I wondered if I should finish it as best I could and send it on, taking heart in the fact that what I know about its creation no one else has to know. Finally, if I did not satisfy your every summons, seeming to fall short in paying off my debt and appearing unappreciative for the very great obligations I owe Your Holiness, I wanted to put every effort into sending it to you. Even though I might be considered of little worth, because perhaps my excuses, though legitimate, would not be accepted, I would rather be recognized as ignorant and scarcely diligent than disobedient and unappreciative. Thus I took it back up in hand immediately. And the request coming from Your Holiness had so much of an effect on me, that what I could not do in ten years from the time the plot first came to me, I completed subsequently in two or three days. Not that I am perfectly satisfied or that there are not parts that may give me cause for concern when I bear in mind what sort of judgment it may invite. Yet, such as it is, I present it to Your Holiness from me personally. If you judge it worthy of your attention, my play will have a better run than I could have hoped for. If on the other hand it ends up being considered otherwise, at least have some fun with it, as people used to do with the pieces by Boraballe the buffoon.49 As long as you enjoy it in some way, I will be satisfied. I commend myself to your most holy feet. From Ferrara, on the 16th day of January 1520.50 Of Your Holiness Your Humble and Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Letter 28 to Nicolò de’ Conti Ariosto writes to a relative on discovering a document connected with some family financial matters. There are textual problems with the letter.

Magnificent Noble Relative, like unto a Brother, Honourable Lord Nicolò de’ Conti of Padua, etc. In Padua.

54

Letters

My Magnificent Relative Most Worthy of Honour. Your Magnificence will perhaps be amazed that I have not sent you the copies of those investiture documents of yours about which you have written my brother Gabriele and me many times in the past. Please know that in addition to the documents that I had shown to your messenger and that he said were not in order, we subsequently found one which might be the one that Your Magnificence is looking for. But we send nothing back in respect to another legal document made from the book. […] I thought that it was housed […] at the Treasury since the notary had told me that he had […] such books. And since this legal consultant was away for a long time, I had to wait for his return. When he came back, I made him look for the book and it turned out that it was not there. We are hopeful that it may be found in the tower where old documents are preserved. In fact, I placed an order that it be sought out. Meanwhile, so that Your Magnificence not accuse me of negligence, I wanted to notify you of this. I will not stop looking until it is clear whether or not this document recording your investiture can be found. In the meantime I commend myself to you. Ferrara, 4 August 1520. Of Your Magnificence Your Relative and Brother, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 29 to Mario Equicola Ariosto asks his friend to help collect some royalties for copies of his poem sold in Verona and to have unsold copies returned to him. Given that the date is late 1520, it is likely that the poet is anxious to remove from the market any copies of the first edition of the Furioso on the eve of its second edition in 1521.51

To the Magnificent Secretary, Most Worthy of Honour, Lord Mario Equicola, like unto a Brother, etc. In Mantua. My Magnificent Mario Most Worthy of Honour. From Messer Gian Iacomo Bardelone52 I have six lire of our money, which Your Magnificence has sent back to me, I believe, as part of the money that has been returned by the bookseller of copies of my Orlando in Verona.

55

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

I am grateful for the money but it seems to me a small amount given what I was expecting. I cannot believe that that bookseller has not sold all of them because I do not know of any other place in Italy where there are any left to sell. And if he has not sold them by now, I do not believe that he will sell them later on. For this reason it would be better if the bookseller sent the copies back here, because I could find a way to sell them immediately. People are asking me for them every day. Your Magnificence, now that you are well, as I hope you are, I beg you to try and figure out what has happened. You will probably find out that the books have been sold and that the bookseller wants to compensate himself with that money. Please remember that I am yours and I always commend myself to you. Ferrara, 8 November 1520. Yours, Ludovico Ariosto.

56

The second section of letters (30–186) dates from Ariosto’s time as ducal commissioner in the Garfagnana, February 1522 till early summer 1525. Located in what is now the northernmost reaches of Tuscany along the Serchio River in a mountain valley among the TuscanEmilian Appennines, this rugged terrain was even more formidable in Ariosto’s day before it was deforested. Contested by Lucca and Ferrara, the towns and families in the Garfagnana split along familiar GuelfGhibelline lines. Alfonso commissioned Ariosto to be in charge of the entire Garfagnana, which was divided into four administrative districts: Castelnuovo, Camporgiano, Trassilico, and Terre Nuove. Each district had a council of eight officials, elected every six months, charged to determine local policy in collaboration with the commissioner. Other officials, mainly appointed by the ducal administration, also helped to oversee the region, including the watchmen of various fortified areas and small border outposts. Ariosto often refers to captains, representatives, castellans, guards, and the like. All these men were needed in the ongoing fight against crime and corruption. The entire region was riddled with criminals, some of whom conspired with the local officials, and many of whom played the various powerbrokers of the region off one another. It was relatively easy for criminals to pit the Italian side, i.e., Florentine and papal faction, against the French, i.e., Estense (letter 34). The powerful families of the Garfagnana could pick with whom to ally themselves and when to do so, and like the major governments of central and northern Italy they shifted allegiances with predictable regularity. Ariosto assumed his position if not enthusiastically at least prepared to work hard to establish an effective and reputable governing presence in the provinces. In more than one passage on the Garfagnana he calls on the metaphor of the political leader as doctor to challenge Alfonso and other authorities to give him the means to heal the corrupt body of the state (letters 40–2, 62, 76, 93–5, 99, 123, and elsewhere). Although at times he laments the lack of communication with his superiors at home, the record (such as it is – we know it is incomplete) shows that Bonaventura Pistofilo and Obizo Remo, the primary ducal secretaries and also friends of Ariosto, do an admirable job in responding to his missives. Their own letters are direct, specific, and often leave little to ambiguity. Sforza’s Documenti provides much of the correspondence that officials from Ferrara maintained with him, more or less in chronological order.

Image taken from the 1984 edition of Ariosto’s Lettere, edited by Angelo Stella. Used with permission of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.

Letter 30 to the Judge of Barga53 In Ariosto’s first surviving letter written as ducal commissioner in the Garfagnana he proposes collaborative policies to the leading official of Barga, a town in neighbouring Florentine territory. The rhetoric is fulsome and virtuous.

Magnificent, Worthy of Honour, like unto a Brother. My Most Illustrious Lord, the Duke of Ferrara, appointed me to run the government of his province, the Garfagnana. His Excellency greatly desires for his subjects to be at peace and to have relations with their neighbours that are free of suspicion, especially with the subjects of the distinguished Republic of Florence. Knowing that and given the full friendship that has existed in the past and continues now between the aforementioned distinguished Republic and His Excellency, it behooved me to contact Your Lordship in writing as soon as I arrived here.54 In the running of the government of these subjects entrusted to us, I implore you to be on my side and I will be on yours. Thus with all our energy in every way possible we will try to bring them under control, to peaceful union and tranquillity, of the sort which our distinguished and Most Illustrious Lords have always enjoyed, then and now. To the next point. In the past few days one Iohan Baricha from Barga came to Castelnuovo at night with a bandit from here, and when some men under orders from their superiors went to catch him, by chance they found in the group one Battistino (who is not from Castelnuovo but who used to live here). He harmed the aforementioned man from Barga against the wishes of all the men from Castelnuovo.55 And since, as I have said, it is our official duty to bring our subjects a fair and lasting peace, I beg Your Lordship to be eager to do everything possible on your end to work out a deal between the family from Barga and the men from Castelnuovo. I say this along with what I have stated above and in addition to the specific assignment of such a case from My Most Illustrious Lord, the Duke. The Castelnuovans have reported that the man from Barga claims to be the victim mistakenly; in fact the case, they say, injures them more with the result that as it draws out some larger evil might rise up in the

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

end. And if the delinquent were in our hands we would make such an example of him that Iohan Baricha from Barga would be satisfied. Your Lordship would also realize that such excess displeases me. In this situation and in whichever others I will govern according to the advice and good opinion of Your Lordship. Offering myself most disposed to you, I always commend myself to you. From Castelnuovo di Garfagna, 2 March 1522. Of Your Noble Magnificence, Like unto a Brother, Ludovico Ariosto General Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana. Letter 31 to the Elders of Lucca The first of eighty-seven letters to the main governing body of the Republic of Lucca, a group of ten men who held office for two months at a time. Since the Estense Garfagnana bordered the province of Lucca, Ariosto often wrote to argue for the rights of his compatriots, as he does here. This is the first of a dozen letters on behalf of this specific citizen, Belgrado; see 31, 32, 67, 71, 77, 86, 113, 120, 183, 185, and 186. Ariosto was clearly moved by the man’s simple honesty.

For the benefit of Belgrado da Vallico. My Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour. I send to Your Lordships Belgrado da Vallico with that stake and pike that you wrote me he had stolen recently from the family of the papal representative in Borgo. Since said Belgrado was very obedient concerning the return of the tools, and since the injuries he sustained in the fight over the tools were costly, he was promised medical treatment for each of the wounds he incurred during the altercation. In fighting to free himself, he expended himself greatly, as he will report to Your Lordships. Therefore, may Your Lordships deign to fulfil Belgrado legally and honestly. He is aware that through my offices he has recourse to legal and honest treatment. I commend myself always in continual gratitude to you. May these things work out well. From Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, 22 March 1522. Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Overseer and General Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana.

60

Letters

Letter 32 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto follows up on the case of Belgrado and then promises to prosecute two bandits.56

For the benefit of the aforementioned Belgrado. Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Your Lordships write to me that Belgrado da Vallico has told you his story and at the same time has returned the stake and the pike. You then report that you have given orders to your representative in Borgo to give a fair hearing to Belgrado for the purpose of sentencing him justly. Belgrado is a poor man very devoted to Your Lordships who sustained more harm from the scuffle than anyone else in perpetrating a greater crime than he originally intended. For all these reasons including, finally, for my love, having found him most obedient in returning the stolen items, I beseech Your Lordships to order your representative to drop the charges against Belgrado. I will proceed with a thorough and rigorous demonstration of justice against those men from Sillico who recently injured those from Castiglione, even more than your representative in Castiglione will be seeking from me. In this way Your Lordships fully know how much the committing of such excessive crimes displeased me. To Your Lordships I commend myself. May these things work out fortunately. From Castelnuovo di Garfagna, 8 April 1522. Of Your Magnificent Lords Your Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Overseer and General Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana. Letter 33 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto asks about rumours of political troubles in Tuscany.57

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. My Most Illustrious Lord writes me that there is turmoil in Tuscany and that I should try diligently to keep current on how the events are unfolding by the hour. My Excellency has ordered me especially to have recourse to Your Lordships, making sure that I have the truth in

61

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

its fullness from you. Thus, with this letter I beg that Your Lordships keep me informed of any such happenings so that I may carry out the wishes of My Most Illustrious Lord. All expenses for messengers sent by courier, which Your Lordships may use to notify me, I will repay fully. And also any expense that you incur sending messengers into the places necessary to seek out the facts, I agree to pay willingly. In so doing, I trust I will seem honest to Your Lordships, which is also the intention of My Most Illustrious Lord. And to Your Lordships I offer myself and commend myself always. May these things work out well. From Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, 15 April 1522. Of Your Magnificent Lords Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Overseer and General Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana. Letter 34 to Alfonso d’Este Information on the selection of the Judge of Trassilico, Tomaso Micotto. In these early days on the job, Ariosto tries hard to come up with constructive solutions to various problems.58

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Recently Your Excellency commissioned me to gather information about how that election for judge among the inhabitants of Trassilico was carried out, whether it was carried out legally and according to norms or in a different way. Further, you asked that I take notice of the status of the man elected59 and report on him to you. Your Excellency will know that the custom used to be that the commissioner, consulting with deputies from that district, made the choice, which Your Excellency would then confirm. Subsequently Your Excellency gave the deputies permission to choose their judge without the commissioner’s input, subject to Your Excellency’s confirmation. And in order that Your Excellency is clearer about this, I am sending you copies of the letters that these men from Trassilico base this practice upon. As far as the status of the man is concerned in my opinion and based on what I could learn, he is

62

Letters

considered a decent person compared to the others that are here. It is true that he and Pierino Magnano have married two sisters and at present both of them live in the house of their mother-in-law. Pierino does this out of fear, since his house is in Malborghetto outside the city walls and he feels safer within the city walls in his mother-in-law’s house; the other lives with her because he is from Camporgiano and does not have a house here. Both share the same entrance but their rooms, as far as I can tell, are separate, and each eats separately. If the judge is a political partisan, he does not exhibit his positions, but I do know that Bastiano Coiaio, whose son is married to the third sister and is thus the brother-in-law of this man and Pierino, saw to it that this man was put into power. That Bastiano did this with some ulterior plan, there is little doubt; in fact, I do not take him for a neutral person at all even though he tries hard to get me to believe he is. In any case Your Excellency can rest assured that people really pay attention to the fact that you have a man from this area (not only from Castelnuovo) serving as judge of Trassilico. And if he were not actually a partisan (something very difficult to discover), nevertheless he will always be under suspicion as being partial to one side or another.60 His father is a certain Ser Giovanni, notary and representative of Camporgiano, who worked as a notary out of a castle called Camaiore for the Luccans when they had control of this province. It would be difficult for me to find out the truth as to whether or not he conspired with them against us. If I ask the Italian side about this they will tell me that any negative things about him are not true, that he is a good man, and if I ask the French side they will all tell me that it was true and they will add all the bad things that they can come up with. But whatever the father is, I only hear good things about him since he has emerged from the backwoods, whatever the truth about his past might be. His son is very moral and having already been elected and having held the office of judge since the election, he could not be removed without serious shame and dishonour. I believe that the intention of Your Excellency is rather to reconcile with these men than to give them some reason for discontent. Since you have honoured me by asking my opinion, I will say that it seems to me that this man should not be removed in order to place someone else from around

63

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

here in that position. To do so would introduce a new cause for yet more enmity. Hoping to say something useful, I will add that when the men from Trassilico come to Ferrara, as they are about to do, it would be very appropriate for Your Excellency to arrange things such that the Captain of Justice of Castelnuovo also assumes the position of judge. With this proviso: that this arrangement take place according to their laws because in doing so the office of captain will be made better and Your Excellency will be able to send a lawyer here of a certain capacity who, with this change in the legal structure, will be in a better position. In any case the judge that they elect is based in Castelnuovo and if they want justice they must come here. Often they have chosen for judge a person who hardly knew how to read and it is impossible for them to elect a judge from here who is impartial. The office cannot support the expense of placing an outsider in the position, even if he lives close by. The persistence in wanting a specific judge depends on two or three hillbillies in charge of the government there, who every year for a pair of socks, as it were, or a florin or two, sell out their office to these no-count notaries. I wanted Your Excellency to be up to date on everything. To your better judgment I refer myself always. In gratitude I humbly commend myself. From Castelnuovo, 19 April 1522. Of Your Excellency Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 35 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto asks for help in restoring a stolen mule to a poor citizen of the Garfagnana.

My Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour. The bearer of this letter, a man who lives in my jurisdiction, reports that his neighbours have stolen one of his mules. He has been trying to find his mule over the past couple of days and a man named Giovanni di Nicolò Giusti da Pescaglia told him that he knew who had stolen it. And now that the aforesaid bearer wants to know from said Giovanni who it was that robbed him, Giovanni has withheld that information and does not want to tell him the truth. Therefore may Your Lordships

64

Letters

order Giovanni to be called forth and questioned concerning what he knows about this theft so that the poor man may find a way to discover the culprit and recover his property. As far as I can tell, Giovanni knows the whole story. To Your Lordships I offer myself and I commend myself always. [19 April 1522.] Of Your Lords Your Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Overseer and General Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana. Letter 36 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto thanks the Elders for their response to his previous requests for information on the political problems in Tuscany.

Concerning the abuse between Castiglione and Sillico. My Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour. I thank Your Lordships for the kind offers and good will toward My Most Illustrious Lord, the Duke, and for the advice you have given to me. To discharge my debt and to comfort His Excellency, the Duke, I have written in detail to him about all this. I beg Your Lordships (to whom I offer myself as eagerly as ever) to keep me apprised of any news that you may have from Tuscany as well as from Lombardy, as the occasion and future needs require. Concerning the men from Sillico who injured, as it was stated, those two from Castiglione, as I promised Your Lordships in other letters of mine, they will not remain unpunished for their excessive crime. Tomorrow or the day after I intend to go to Castiglione in order to speak with your representative to be sure again that both towns, Castiglione and Sillico, are safe, so that the citizens of each may carry out normal activities in each other’s domain without suspicion. I hope that your representative and I will get something accomplished. And to Your Lordships I offer myself and I commend myself always. May these things work out well. From Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, 20th Day in April 1522. Of Your Lords Your Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Overseer and General Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana.

65

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 37 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs Ariosto writes to the group responsible for foreign policy in Florence to defend some mercenaries accused of leaving with their pay.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence. In Florence. Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. In order to obey as much as Your Lordships command of me (because I want to take your exhortations to heart like commands), I called to my office those citizens about whom Bartolomeo da Barga laments saying that they escaped from Buonconvento with his money. I find that they present the rationale for their behaviour very well. They claim that Bartolomeo, once he had them muster at home, arranged for the one in charge (there were seven of them) to be given a certain number of gold coins. He promised that he would give them their full pay when they were at Castelfiorentino. When they came to find Bartolomeo at Barga, they had the same promise from him and, what is more, he said to them that if he did not see to it to give them their full pay, they were permitted to go home with the money that they had. When they were in Castelfiorentino, with no money and wanting to turn back for this reason, Bartolomeo begged them to march on to Poggibonsi, where they would get their pay, and if not, they could return without further delay. In Poggibonsi they did not get anything but words and from there with the same requests and promises they were drawn as far as Siena, where, with the arrival of enemies, they took sides and fulfilled their military responsibilities. Then, when Bartolomeo wanted to march them to Buonconvento again, they refused to go. Yet, in part by pleas, in part by giving them a little bit of money (from their first payments at home and along the way, the seven companions did not share more than ten ducats total), he did enough to get them to go back to Buonconvento. He himself reaffirmed that if they did not get all their money there, they were free to return home. So they marched to Buonconvento while suffering greatly and without much to eat, where they were not given their payment any more than in the other places. And for this reason, not really fleeing but rather breaking off the agreement, they returned

66

Letters

home. Fourteen days passed from the day they first left home till the day they left Buonconvento to go home again. In order to obey Your Lords and to fulfil my duty, and still not having much practice in administering money, I got together and consulted with some men who are used to having companies of soldiers. They had two delegates from Bartolomeo and the men accused of fleeing from the other side come here, then both sides made their case. My advisers told me that after all is said and done the payment to these soldiers has to begin with the day they arrived at Castelfiorentino according to the arrangement and normal custom for managing soldiers’ pay. However, if it is true that Bartolomeo told them that they could return home if they did not get their money, that is, receive the whole payment at Castelfiorentino, since these agreements break the laws, then the payment must begin with the day that they were drafted from home, when they had their first instalment. Bartolomeo’s delegates neither deny nor affirm this agreement. I wanted to assign an end date to the soldiers’ time to verify this but Bartolomeo’s delegates were not happy with that. I fear that they are about to make a sinister and less than truthful report to Your Noble Lordships. For this reason I wanted to notify you about everything so that you may still sit in judgment concerning it, since I know that you will not step aside from justice nor will I. I am most devoted to you and in gratitude I commend myself to you always. From Castelnuovo, 21 May 1522. Of Your Noble Lordships Most Humble Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana. Letter 38 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto promises justice for a specific citizen from Lucca.

For the benefit of Francesco di Martino da Burgo di Mozzano. Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I have taken note of how much Your Lordships commend Francesco Martino to me. I will not fail to show him every favour possible according to  justice. Since this territory has some statutes that prevent the

67

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

commissioner from intervening in lawsuits that pertain to the Captain of Justice – whose jurisdiction is rather wide – I advised the aforementioned citizen of what he has to do in order to gain a swift resolution. And in this situation as in every other I am fully prepared to obey Your Lordships, to whom I commend myself. From Castelnuovo, 23 May 1522. Of Your Lordships Most Humble Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 39 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto asks the Duke to support a local judge in a dispute with various citizens. He then reports that there is word of troops mustering in Pisa.61

To My Most Illustrious and Noble Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Noble Lord. The abundant mercies that Your Excellency shows these men from Camporgiano have made them act like jackasses – I cannot think of a more refined way to say it – and they will not do anything without being forced. I say this because it seems to me that they are acting terribly toward the judge in Camporgiano. He has executed that thug that he had in prison and according to the orders and customs here he is due fifty lire for the execution, but they are refusing to pay what they owe him, according to the judge. I believe that they will have recourse to Your Excellency, trusting that you will consider their case (brought against them with great difficulty and ongoing bother) as kindly and generously as you do them individually. I beseech Your Excellency to support the judge, who is a good man. He is smart, a wholesome and faithful servant of Your Excellency, who along with his officials will take it to heart to punish the deplorable criminals. After this, I want to alert you that two men from the Maremma have ended up here. They report that many soldiers mustered in Pisa then left by boat from Livorno to go and guard Genoa. Ambushed either by Messer Andrea Doria or by Brother Bernardino d’Airasa in a place called Meloria, some were killed, others were wounded and captured.62 The boats transporting them were taken too. Whether the

68

Letters

news is true or false, I pass it on to Your Excellency as I have received it.63 In gratitude I humbly commend myself to you. From Castelnuovo, 22 June 1522. Your Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 40 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto hopes for a reciprocal policy on dealing with bandits who cross the borders between Luccan and Estense territories.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Recently I was in Ferrara, where among the other commissions I had from My Most Illustrious Lord, he made it clear that as far as my jurisdiction extends, I should always be ready to serve and please Your Lordships. He ordered me especially not to allow rebels from Your Noble Republic into his province and, should they come, to catch them and prosecute them no differently than I would rebels and enemies of His Excellency. I am prepared to do this along with anything else that I think will be useful and pleasing to Your Lordships. I have learned that in my absence Your Lordships have lamented with my lieutenant about various acts of aggression committed in your territory by hoodlums, outlaws from here. In addition to what I believe my lieutenant has written, I also add that I too was very displeased and am eager to remedy things as best I can. I wrote to My Most Illustrious Lord about it and I think that His Excellency in any case will show me how to punish the criminals – better than I have been able to do or have done up to now. However, beyond what I anticipate my Lord will work out, I believe that if Your Lordships notify your representatives whose lands border this ducal province of the following it will help me greatly. Notify them that in order to catch such scoundrels they must come armed to help my crossbowmen whenever asked and they must not provide any hideaways to bandits from our side, which is how I am dealing with the rebels and bandits in Your Lordships’ territories. In gratitude I commend myself to you always. From Castelnuovo, 12 September 1522. Of Your Magnificent Lords Most Obedient Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner.

69

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 41 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto details collusion between petty officials and bandits and then presents evidence against Bastiano Coiaio, who is aiding the bandits. The commissioner’s narrative skill, specifically in maintaining distinct but interwoven plot lines, serves him well.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. In addition to what I have written in another letter64 to Your Excellency concerning the breach of civic order in this territory – which, without your help, will be impossible to overcome having no greater military force than I do – I can remedy things as long as I do not lack for other kinds of help. First I had a proclamation posted against the criminals of Pontecchio and their accomplices (including Battistino Magnano, who was the cause of the problem between the men from Barga and here). I enclose a copy with this letter to Your Excellency, receipt of which I ask you kindly to confirm. Then I wrote to the Florentine commissioner at Fivizzano and to the Lords of Lucca so that all of us together could organize a well-designed search party, with each group contributing to go after these robbers. Every day they continue to engage in criminal activity, extorting money from whomever they like.65 They have been bold enough to send word to some here in Castelnuovo that if they do not send in the necessary money, they will come and cut them to pieces even if they are taking refuge in the castle. And they might even be bold enough to try because they have supporters here backing them up who feed and defend them. So that Your Excellency does not think that I am being deceived, I also include a letter that came into my hands today. It is from Bastiano Coiaio to these bandits sent from Sillico, where Bastiano, as I make clear in another letter written to Your Excellency,66 is the counsel and guide of the faction of Pierino. The bandits often gather for advice in Bastiano’s house, as per certain witnesses in the captain’s orbit here. In order for Your Excellency to understand the substance of the letter, you should know that on the very day that I arrived here, a mule filched in Camporgiano ended up at Ceserana in the hands of Moro dal Sillico, the brother of the ones who

70

Letters

murdered Ser Ferdiano. Moro is the one who has been banned for other reasons but nevertheless he is here holding the fortified tower of Ceserana. The man67 from whom the mule was stolen had been kept from coming to complain to me, in part by threats and in part by promises that he would get his mule back. Today he was taken to Bastiano Coiaio, who gave him the letter that I am sending you a copy of. Before I copied the letter, I made him come to me and swear that it is in Bastiano’s hand and that he saw him write it. Only then did I copy it, so that Your Excellency realizes that Bastiano and Evangelista68 are partisans and counsels to Pierino. They are the ones who help and advise these bandits. Whoever gets rids of them and their boss, Pierino, would make this land healthier, as if ridding it of some disease. This is the copy of the letter: ‘On the 13th day of September 1522. Moro, I have seen the record between Bastiano Catucio and Pierlenzo’s men and I can tell that Pierlenzo’s guys are in the wrong. Consequently he wanted to come to the commissioner’s and I did not want him to out of respect for you since you have the mule. Therefore in my opinion you should use any means necessary to get his mule back to him without making him pay anything. This should be on your honour. And if Pierlenzo wanted to extort money, he should not have put the mule in your custody. Therefore, take care of it immediately. If not, you will be ordered to return it to him because here everyone knows you have it. Then you should do what Giorgino asks you to do and follow through with the order because Evangelista and all of us want you to do it quickly. My farmer will keep you informed of everything. I think you should give the mule to Giorgino without making a mistake because it would be a big shame. And if Pierlenzo’s men believe that they do not have anything from Bastiano Catucio, let me know of what they say. Then I’ll take care of it. Bastiano Coiaio, in Castelnuovo.’ This is the copy of the letter that Your Excellency should decide about as seems right to you. Concerning these things and many others pertinent to this territory I beseech you to make the plans

71

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

that seem most opportune. In gratitude very humbly I commend myself to you. Castelnuovo, 13 September Of Your Excellency Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 42 to Obizo Remo69 Ariosto details the activities of a sympathizer and accomplice to the bandits. He hopes to be more effective by writing to one of the Duke’s secretaries rather than to the Duke himself.

To My Magnificent and Most Honourable Lord, Obizo Remo, Ducal Secretary, etc. In Ferrara. My Magnificent Obizo. Your Magnificence will see in this other letter of mine just how much and what I write to Our Lord. I beg you to see that I have an answer quickly, because truly if one does not remedy these various civil disturbances, some day one will arise that we will not be able to remedy. Pierino is still here in our territory and as far as I know he does not have the desire to go to Ferrara. It is hard not to believe that he is an accomplice to some great evil deed. He is not sure about who knows what and for this reason he is reluctant to see me. I have already been here for six days and he has not yet dared to come see me. Last night a messenger that he had sent to Ferrara arrived back here; I blame him for having taken letters from our messenger along the route. In any case I want to wring his neck but I want to wait till Pierino has left, if he has to leave. Pierino, in fact, has secret contacts and special support in the court of Ferrara among people who give him courage to do what he wants. After Your Lordship had written him that ducal letter, a crossbowman, Quirino da Brissello, came from Ferrara, spoke with him briefly and went straight back. I ask Your Magnificence to make everything clear to Our Lord and perhaps it would not be a bad idea to learn what that crossbowman came to do. Next, to lower some of the costs for these poor citizens, so that they do  not have to go to Ferrara for everything, I take care to forward their petitions via courier. Thus, I send this enclosure, which if Your

72

Letters

Magnificence will sign off on it, I will resend to the chancery so that  the required taxes will be paid. To Your Magnificence I commend myself and I desire to hear that Messer Bonaventura has been cured.70 Castelnuovo, 14 September 1522. Of Your Magnificence Ludovico Ariosto. Postscript. Pierino Magnano had someone petition me (because he, I am not sure with what reason except that the evil one hates the light, has never come where I am) to delay his deadline for appearing in Ferrara by eight more days. I agreed. I do not know if he will come. Letter 43 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs Ariosto restates the details of the disagreement outlined in letter 37 between Bartolomeo da Barga and mercenaries from the Garfagnana. The elegant Latinate Italian barely conceals his frustration at not having any response over the last four months.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence. In Florence. Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. Last May I wrote to Your Noble Lordships about what I had done and could do according to law in the case between Bartolomeo di Maestro Iacopo da Barga and some men from our ducal province. He claims that they fled from him with their pay at Buonconvento. I made it completely clear to Your Lordships (if you received my letter) that having compared the stories from each party, I found that which I repeat here again so that you not have any bad opinion of me, since I do not want to appear to be unreasonable to anyone. And all the less would I want to shortchange your subjects, since I am devoted to Your Noble Lordships out of respect for the good friendship that I know exists between My Most Illustrious Lord Duke and this Noble Republic. Furthermore, both for previous conversations that I have had in Florence and for my natural inclinations, I have a particularly strong affection for your state and I am desirous to obey your orders. Your Lordships therefore will understand again that this is

73

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

the situation. Bartolomeo commanded that some soldiers be mustered from this province – there were seven of them in all – and he gave them a small amount of money. He promised to give them the rest of their pay when they got to Castelfiorentino. They feared that they were being deceived and they protested that, not having their full amount of money, they were able to return home with the little bit of money they had received. No one denies the truth of the claim that Bartolomeo sent them here. When they were in Castelfiorentino there was no one who gave them any money and they wanted to come home. But then, at the behest of Bartolomeo, they were pleased to go forward to Poggibonsi, but they declared again that if they did not receive their stipend, they would return home. From Poggibonsi with similar pleas and promises they were marched to Siena. Since there was no one there either who would pay them, they wanted to return home. And yet Bartolomeo, begging, promising, and handing out a little money, got them to stay. When the battle came to Siena, they took their places on the walls and took part. Then from Siena without having received their pay, with the same pleas and promises, they were led to Buonconvento. There with no pay and no hope of getting it and with the army breaking up anyway, they went away with most of the others, keeping the little bit of money they had been given. Seven mercenaries shared about ten or twelve ducats. What I am writing to Your Noble Lordships was confirmed as the truth by both sides in my presence. But because I am not a soldier by profession and not being confident that I know enough to pass judgment in this case, with the help of a very learned lawyer here, I called forth many good men who have worked as soldiers. They said that the service for these infantrymen should be calculated from the day that they arrived in Castelfiorentino. Further, the consultants added that the compensation should be whichever is greater, either according to the number of days that they served or according to a percentage in relation to the first instalment of their anticipated payment. This solution did not please the men who came to me on behalf of Bartolomeo and they left. They have lodged a complaint with Your Noble Lordships that I do not want to render them justice. Give heed to this case. Because you are so prudent and have at your disposal an abundance of soldiers and people who understand the use

74

Letters

of weapons better than I or the men here with whom I am able to consult, I beseech Your Excellent Lordships to judge the case and advise me as to what you think I should do. I will sentence and absolve these men according to your judgment. And if Bartolomeo says that the situation is otherwise, in order to clarify the issues for Your Lordships I will send one of these infantrymen to be with him at the hearing where you pass judgment. In gratitude I commend myself to you always. Castelnuovo, 24 September 1522. Of Your Lords Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner of the Garfagnana. Letter 44 to the Elders of Lucca A plea to be able to transport chestnuts across the border. Chestnuts were an important resource in the economy of the Garfagnana.

My Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour. The bearers of this letter are men from the village of Cascio in the ducal province. They harvested chestnuts at Terzo in the territory of Gallicano. Now that they have finished their work and labour, the prohibition of Your Lordships does not permit them to take their harvest home. In good faith I implore Your Lordships, this one time for these four poor men, to allow them to benefit from the fruit of their labour. I commend myself to you. From Castelnuovo, 26 September 1522. Of Your Lords Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 45 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto is concerned about the spreading of the plague.

My Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour. Since by the grace of God this whole ducal province of Garfagnana up to now is

75

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

healthy and without any of the world’s evil diseases, I would like to keep it this way in the future by whatever means possible. For this reason I remain vigilant about letting people come into the province from areas that are suspect for disease. But these are diseases that spring up so quickly, I cannot be sure I know whom to guard against. Therefore I wanted to appeal to Your Lordships as men in whom I have the greatest faith, who love hardly less the subjects of My Most Illustrious Lord than your own. I beseech you to satisfy this messenger sent by post horses in order to advise me of the lands and areas that I must be wary of. Moreover please give me advice as to whether or not I should let the market be held. Hoping for things to get better, we have deferred it till the 5th of October. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself to you. From Castelnuovo, 28 September 1522. Of Your Lords Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 46 to Obizo Remo On bandits and crossbowmen. For the first time Ariosto expresses doubts about his abilities to fulfil the duties of the commissioner.

To My Magnificent and Most Honourable Lord, Obizo Remo, Ducal Secretary, etc. In Ferrara. Magnificent and Most Honourable to me. Yesterday I had a letter from Our Lord sent to me by Christophoro Casanova da Sestola in response to the proclamation, of which I sent a copy.71 As far as proceeding against the criminals from Pontecchio and the other bandits goes, do not fear that I am undertaking it without consulting the captain here and that I can be accused of acting unjustly. It pleases me that Our Lord is content with my agreement with the Luccan and Florentine Lords that their bandits not find safe haven in our territory, nor bandits from here in theirs. I will monitor the situation as it develops so that things remain equal and they do not gain an advantage over us. I believe that Pierino is currently in Ferrara. I have delayed Bastiano Coiaio somewhat and I will not require him to come

76

Letters

until I have a response to the letters concerning him that I wrote Your Magnificence. On behalf of this community, Evangelista testified in writing to Our Lord that the bandits had been given refuge. From another letter of mine you will have seen that he came to me extremely unwillingly, claiming that to do so was his ruination. He begged me and supplicated me with prayers to work it out so that he would not have to come. I feel for him, yet even in this I defer to those with better judgment than I have and to those in whom mercy does not corrupt justice. I confess to you candidly that I am not the type of man to govern other men. I have too much compassion for others and it is hard for me to say no. The crossbowmen who are the bearers of this letter are two good men, competent and brave. In their favour I note that they have wives in this territory. I recommend that Your Magnificence see to it that they not lose their land. There is another crossbowman, Magnano, who could not come because he was sick. He will come as soon as he can. I ask that Your Magnificence see to it that he not lose his land for this reason, as Messer Giovanni Ziliolo promised me.72 The others who remain will have needs and they should not have their postings changed for now. Messer Giovanni Francolino, whom Your Magnificence recommended to me, never showed up. If he has not left Ferrara by now, I do not care that he come anyway. Neither he nor anyone else. I am satisfied with the crossbowmen that I have. I thank Your Magnificence for the notice you have given me about Lord Ercole.73 I hope things work out for the best. I also hope that what was promised to Ludovico Cato in Spain is that which we all desire. Nothing else is required at the present. To Your Magnificence I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 2 October 1522. Of Your Magnificence Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 47 to Obizo Remo A full report on various issues: the captain at Camporgiano, factions, the challenges of creating a public militia, Pierino Magnano and Bastiano Coiaio.

77

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

To My Magnificent and Most Honourable Lord, Obizo Remo, Ducal Secretary, etc. In Ferrara. Magnificent and Most Worthy of Honour to me, my Obizo. Bastiano, the bearer of this letter, comes to beseech our Lord in his name and perhaps also for his uncle, Leone, both from Gragnanella. I want them to pay the penalty they have incurred for harming one another. In fact, these are the ones of whom Your Magnificence wrote me that the intention of our Lord was not to grant them any favours other than what they are due by law. Yet because they are poor men and they have beseeched me, I commend them to Your Magnificence and recommend that Our Lord be satisfied with the thirty-five lire that each of them has paid. It is true that the order was for them not to get out of prison until they had paid off the whole sum. But at the behest of many respectable men I was content to allow them to delay payment on half of their fine for this whole month and the other half for all of November. I have assured the Treasury that the rest will be paid off at the appropriate time. Now, as I have said, Bastiano is coming to petition for clemency and I commend him to Your Magnificence in order that you make him promise to pay even against his will. To Your Magnificence I commend myself. Next, I wrote several days ago that a certain Balduccio from Careggine, accused of having killed a certain Togno who was living in the village of Isola Santa, turned himself in for imprisonment at Camporgiano willingly. But immediately, that is the very day that Balduccio committed himself to jail, the captain left his office on a leave of absence (much as nuns from Genoa do)74 and he went to enjoy himself at his house in Lunigiana. And for this reason I was uncertain as to whether this fellow would try to cleanse his crimes with a little quick rinsing. I did not know if he had actually willingly put himself in prison and so I planned to have this prisoner removed and brought to be held here in Castelnuovo so that he could not be questioned without me. Since I happened to be going to Camporgiano on other business yesterday, I intended to bring him here with me. So much the more did I desire to do so when I saw how he was being held: he wanders freely throughout the castle without any guards, going and staying as suits him. But at the behest of Ser Constantino,

78

Letters

a local notary, I agreed not to insult the captain in this way. I did, however, order the captain’s man in charge and the notary to keep the prisoner locked up, with chains on his feet. And if it happened that he wanted to argue his innocence concerning any clues connected with the murder, I told them not to let him do that without an order from me. The aggrieved party lodged a formal complaint with me about the relative freedom of the accused and wanted me to take on this case. I believe that they will request this. I would not be able to take care of this mess now because I am ill suited to deal with it. It would not be bad, however, if in recognition of this the Captain of Castelnuovo would participate in the juridical process along with the Captain of Camporgiano so that for once and for all we would begin to punish criminals in this territory. In fact, they have got off with impunity in the past and the law has so little power here that they are multiplying like crazy with no corner of the country safe. But the area of Camporgiano is especially dangerous with a man murdered at San Romano since I returned from Ferrara. In another part of that territory Genese, the murderer of the Count of San Donnino, caught a man and tied him to a tree naked. Once the poor fellow was tied up, Genese wounded him sixteen times and left him there the whole night in the woods, where he was not discovered until much later the next day. But he was still alive. Those thugs from Pontecchio are still in the vicinity and they are emboldened to petition me for a deal. Simon Contardo75 came for one of these men, Bernardello, and made this offer: if I pardon him he will pay a bail bond of three hundred ducats and he will not bother anyone in the world, he will be civil, and he will pay back all that he has taken from the thieving dolts of Domenico di Amorotto. In addition he will give me either a little mule or ten golden ducats. Similarly someone else came on behalf of Bertagnetto to make me the same offer, and he too for his part offered me ten more ducats. Then yesterday, when I was at Camporgiano, the Council of Eight in that district asked me to do the same for all the criminals as long as they each paid a bond of three hundred ducats to live as respectable men. I gave them reason to hope. They proposed to come and speak to me if I gave them safe-conduct. They had me understand that recently they authorized in good faith the taking

79

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

of money from those Lombards (which they subsequently repaid) and from these local robbers on the assumption that it would please Our Lord. They also led me to believe that when they spoke to me they would tell me who it had been that persuaded them to do that. I did not want to agree that anyone come and speak with me. Nor did I want to offer them safe-conduct. So, I had them write down for me everything that they wanted to tell me in person. And that is the way I set things up with them. I used a little bit of gentleness because I have had experience in dealing with similar men from Sillano. Guaranteeing the bandits to me, they hope to be able to hand them over to me soon. These other men from Sillico who murdered Ser Ferdiano are still in Sillico and Cesarana. I have not stopped thinking and fantasizing about how I might be able to swell my forces without any cost to Our Lord. To increase my strength would at least make these thugs afraid of me. To this end I was at Camporgiano yesterday, where I commanded that the Council of Eight of this area be called to a meeting. But because my order went out late, I could only get four of them there. To these four I explained that recently when I was in Ferrara I had had a long discussion with Our Excellency, the Lord, concerning the crimes committed every day in their province. We discussed his wish to attend to the problem in any way possible and that he was thinking about sending reinforcements of up to twentyfive more crossbowmen again. We also talked about his wanting this territory to take pains sooner to pay these crossbowmen, without whom it is left as prey to criminals and thugs. On the other hand, taking pity on the area’s poverty, he was very bewildered and ultimately he chose this compromise: that the territory of Camporgiano elect fifty men under two corporals and that the area of Castelnuovo choose fifty men under two other corporals. These then would be obliged, either all or part of them, to muster with their weapons at every request of the commissioner. They would go with the crossbowmen to carry out orders. Every time they would be put to work, the territorial government would pay them six bolognini per soldier per day. He thought that this would be a small expense for the local governments. If this order is accepted, the Lord will not need to send other crossbowmen here.

80

Letters

The four men of the Council of Eight who met here liked this proposal. They noted that it was not very expensive and it could work out to be very helpful. But they said that they wanted time to answer me so that they could talk to the other members of the council. And they hoped that everyone could agree on that. I wanted to notify Your Magnificence on this count so that if it happens that one of these men should come to Ferrara and speak about it, I would not look like a liar. I believe that I will be able to obtain this provision in the territory of Castelnuovo. If things work out as I hope, I do not think that the bandits will linger in this province. Today it has been twelve days since Pierino Magnano left Castelnuovo with my letters. He said to me that he wanted to come and obey the Lord. Whether he has arrived by now or not, Your Magnificence knows better than I. I was told (but I am not sure if I ought to believe it because the source is not a very good friend of his) that after he left here he spent several days in hiding with some bandits in the bell tower of Villa, a place nearby, and that he then went to Pistoia. I gave a different order to Bastiano Coiaio: I assigned him a deadline that seemed fair, by which time he had to present himself before the Lord. He is hoping that the Lord will revoke this order before the deadline. As I said, yesterday I was at Camporgiano and those people are amazed that the Lord has not sent a new captain, or that he does not confirm the one who has been here up to now, because his term ends on Saint Michael’s day.76 The captainship in Camporgiano is much better than the one here in Castelnuovo and now that things are peaceful I think that any respectable man would come here willingly. Nothing else to report for the moment. To Your Magnificence I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 5 October 1522. Of Your Magnificence Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 48 to the Elders of Lucca A proposal to renew the agreements between Ferrara and Lucca on the bandits.

81

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. It has been but a few days since I wrote Your Lordships on the same subject and since I discovered that you were most swift in pleasing me with all that I requested. Nevertheless having new letters in hand concerning this situation and new orders from My Most Illustrious Lord, it seemed appropriate for me to respond with this letter to make it clear that for the peace of this province His Excellency desires that Your Lordships and he renew that custom and pact, which I understand used to be in place. Namely, that bandits from this province in any serious case, such as rebels or criminals or those guilty of voluntary manslaughter, will not be given safe haven in your territory and vice versa. And that if any such bandits from Your Lordships’ territory come into this ducal province, the commissioner here will be obliged to do everything possible for whoever asks on your behalf so that you catch them and vice versa. Wherefore I beseech Your Lordships that you please satisfy this legitimate request of My Lord and that you write a letter in the way that seems best to you, which I will have added to the registry of laws for this area. I shall do the same either with my own letters or by having one sent by the Duke himself, as pleases Your Lordships. In gratitude I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 9 October 1522. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 49 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto asks that a citizen of Castelnuovo accused of counterfeiting money be given the benefit of the doubt, since he is a first-time offender.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Your Lordships will see how intensely this community of Castelnuovo commends to you a brother of Father Riccio, who has been accused of counterfeiting money. Since he is a newcomer to the art and has never committed such a mistake before and has been seduced by his

82

Letters

companion (it being easier for the bad to corrupt the good than for the good to lead the bad to be honest), I still together with these others commend him to Your Lordships. But if he has become a habitual criminal, I will not get in the way of justice. And to Your Lordships I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 14 October 1522. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 50 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto asks for help in catching the bandits and offers his own plan.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. It was reported to me that at Ceserana, a territory near here in the ducal province, one of those Totti rebels is hiding from Your Lordships with the sons of Pellegrino dal Sillico, who are outlaws of this ducal territory. Since I am limited in my forces, they are here and I cannot do anything about it. For this reason it seemed appropriate to notify Your Lordships so that in the way that you deem best you may find out, along the road to Lupinaia or other territories that are near it, whether or not the information that has been reported to me is true. And I too for my part will try to find out as best I can. If I find it to be true, it would be a good thing for Your Lordships to send your constable for one night either right here to Castelnuovo or to some other place where the crossbowmen that I have here could connect with him more secretly and go to Ceserana. That way in one fell swoop they could catch the rebel against Your Lordships as well as the outlaws. Therefore I beg that you be diligent in seeking out the truth of what I am writing and I will do the same. And whoever has confirmation first should contact the other. To Your Lordships I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 14 October 1522. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner.

83

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 51 to Nicolò Guizardino Ariosto seeks to reestablish a treaty with neighbouring Fivizzano in the Lunigiana.

Magnificent Lord Most Worthy of Honour to me, Nicolò Guizardino, Commissioner in Fivizzano. Magnificent Most Worthy of Honour to me. Because of the proximity that these lands have with each other, one so close to the other, and being subject to three rulers – the Florentine Lords, the Luccans, and My Lord – it is known far and wide that the bandits of each of these three states are not afraid of any reckoning at all.77 They safely stay in one area because they have a place where they can take refuge nearby in another if they are chased from one side to the other. And since I desire to take care of this I wrote about it to My Lord. His Excellency ordered me to write to Your Magnificence and to the Captains of Pietrasanta and Barga asking that everyone try to work with the Florentines, who would like to renew a treaty and pact. There used to be one between the ducal state and the others. That is, there used to be an agreement that no one who had committed a serious crime such as treason against the government, the harming of others, and voluntary manslaughter, who was an outlaw from the state of the Florentine Lords could be safe in this ducal province and vice versa. In order to execute my order and so that justice have its proper place, I beg Your Magnificence that you do everything possible to follow up on this relationship so that the criminals do not have such freedom to move around. I offer myself to Your Magnificence with an ongoing obligation and I commend myself to you always. Castelnuovo, 16 October 1522. Of Your Magnificence Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 52 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto asks permission to annul a pardon granted to one of the local henchmen, Moro.78

84

Letters

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious Lord. Yesterday Moro dal Sillico presented to me the pardon that Your Excellency granted him for a homicide that merited mercy rather than harshness. Today I have received letters and a messenger on horse from the Commissioner of Frignano to notify me that Moro, while returning with his brothers and other companions he leads, from Frignano where they had gone to help Virgilio,79 broke into the house of a subject of Your Excellency, knocking down the doors and ripping open money boxes. They stole goods equal to one hundred lire in value. There was only an old woman in the house and your subject asks that I have them return the goods. If Moro comes back here again, I will seize him and I will have the captain punish him as he deserves for his crime. I will not recognize the pardon that Your Excellency has given him. The pardon does not cover this criminal act or others that I have heard Moro and his brothers are responsible for. But I doubt that he will come back here because the poor man whose house Moro robbed went to the son and grandson of Bastiano Coiaio and also to Evangelista to see if they could help him get his stuff back before he came to see me. He said that others from Frignano who are connected with Moro gave him advice but since he did not get any help from them, he came to me. I fear that Moro now is suspicious and will not be back. If he does not return, with Your Excellency’s permission, I will annul the pardon. In gratitude humbly I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 19 November 1522. Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 53 to the Elders of Lucca A renewed attempt to get a commitment from the Luccans on the reciprocal treatment of bandits.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Recently I wrote to Your Lordships relaying My Most Illustrious Lord’s desire that bandits guilty of voluntary homicide and rebels in the ducal province not be given safe haven in your territory, especially in your lands

85

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

that border the Garfagnana. His Excellency is obliged to do the same toward Your Lordships. And because you never gave me a clear answer and because My Lord has written me about it again, I am sending this letter once more with which I beseech you to respond. May you please grant me what I am requesting, which truly will bring peace and quiet to all the Garfagnana. To Your Lordships I commend myself. From Castelnuovo, 22 November 1522. Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Overseer and General Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana. Letter 54 to the Elders of Lucca Concerned about reports of the plague to the south, Ariosto requests permission for citizens from the Garfagnana to transport salt across Luccan territory to avoid the infected areas.80

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Since every day more news is forthcoming about the plague in places that are not, to be sure, very far from here, I think it is my duty, as well as that of every other person who is not a fool, to think seriously about the situation. For example, if the war were to overtax me, I would have recourse to Your Lordships, in whom, after My Lord, I have the greatest faith.81 Similarly, for this plague, which scares me no less than war, I will invoke the same trust. I am more fearful than anything for our muleteers, sent by Acconcio the Salt Man, who come and go from here to Pisa. I am especially afraid of the encampments that they make along the way, for I do not see how they can be safe. For this reason it seemed right to contact Your Lordships and ask you kindly to find a room where the muleteers can sleep without going to the public hostels, somewhere in Lucca or the surrounding area. Acconcio will pay the cost of the room and he will set it up as suits his needs. I have a greater favour to ask of Your Lordships: could you see to it that Acconcio’s muleteers do not have to pass through Lucca and could you order the carriage drivers and haulers at the behest of Acconcio to take from Pisa the amount of salt they need, in total three thousand staia, and transport it to Lucca?82 They should do this with the usual

86

Letters

and ordinary payment and place it in an appropriately designated storage space. From there we would send for it to be picked up by our wagons and transported to Castelnuovo. We would promise Your Lordships the amount of insurance deemed necessary so that you would not suffer any financial loss. I beg Your Lordships for this favour, both for the ability to keep our area more healthy and for the mountain near Modena that needs salt urgently. I doubt that our wagons will be able to bring supplies as quickly as the need arises. My Most Illustrious Lord ordered me to be diligent in getting this salt shipped quickly. If I am taking advantage of Your Lordships, attribute it to my great faith in you rather than any presumption on my part. To Your Lordships I commend myself always. From Castelnuovo, 25 November 1522. If Your Lordships could arrange for lodging for the drivers at Sesto di Moriano, it would work well for us and it would not cause much problem for you. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana. Letter 55 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports on various political manoeuvrings and alliances in the towns of the Garfagnana.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Obeying Your Excellency, I gathered men from the district of Trassilico and had them understand your wish that they elect another judge, since Your Excellency does not want Ser Tomaso Micotto to hold the position any longer. These men asked me if they could delay this election by six days, then they returned within two and beseeched me that I at least postpone things for Ser Tomaso to come see you before I removed him from office, making them elect someone else. They hope that

87

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

you will be content to allow him to continue for two months, since he was near the end of his term, which he is supposed to hold for one year. They made these requests because they were beseeched by Ser Tomaso himself not to insult him and because they felt constrained to show him respect in the way that neighbours do around here. And they did this regardless of his behaviour. I did not want to deny their request at all nor did I want to please them by disobeying Your Excellency. So I made them elect a judge to carry out judgments until Ser Tomaso returned from Ferrara, either reappointed or definitively removed from office. They elected Messer Achille Granduccio, who is the only university graduate in the whole Garfagnana. Truly in addition to his learning he is a very good man, as Your Excellency has had proof, since recently he served as judge of the criminal court in Ferrara. If Your Excellency would like them to hold a normal election, either now or at the beginning of the year or in March (when Ser Tomaso took office), they will elect the one who is now working as a substitute, namely Messer Achille, and that could not be a better outcome. If however they elect someone else, I will make a proper report on it to you. Next, there is something of a disagreement between the Captain of Camporgiano and a certain Leoardo da San Romano, to whom recently Your Excellency granted an unconditional pardon from a sentence that the captain had passed. The disagreement has arisen because the captain would like to add an additional fine, that is, two bolognini for every lira of the original penalty, alleging that it is not Your Excellency’s intention to remit what you receive from the officials. I have been a little confused in trying to resolve this disagreement. On the one hand, it seems to me that the person collecting the fine should not be making a profit where he does not have to work to take in the money. In my capacity as the taxing authority for Castelnuovo I similarly have to have two bolognini for every lira; I have never asked the citizens for an additional penalty that I kept. On the other hand, the accounting of the captain is not inconsequential, for he says that this should be part of his fees. He says that if the emoluments were removed, he could not survive and that if he does not have some revenue, he will not work for the outcome of the sentence.

88

Letters

Therefore I beg Your Excellency: please clarify what I should do. How tolerant should I be concerning this situation since the captain has wanted that additional fine anyway? I beseech you not to make one of us the son and the other the stepson, as they say, for if he has the two bolognini for each lira, so should I. But I have to work to collect the fine whereas he does not, since at Camporgiano there is a separate collector, who, in addition to what the captain takes, also takes his cut of two bolognini. And the overseer should know how the collection has gone in that region if he ever sees the records. So that Your Excellency may know everything that happens in this province, I recently wrote to you that the aforementioned captain had got in his hands one Balduccio, who, together with Father Matheo and two other thugs, had killed a poor man by throwing him off a cliff. Balduccio came to turn himself in willingly to the captain. When I learned that he was letting the criminal roam around, I became suspicious that the judge and the criminal were in cahoots. Since the captain was not around, I then ordered the notary of Camporgiano not to leave the man’s side without my permission. But then, without explaining anything to me, he pardoned him and let him out of prison. To my previous description of this situation I never received a response from you. Next, I need to relay to Your Excellency another similar thing, not to say anything bad but so that Your Excellency may understand everything that I judge to be pertinent to this office. Recently there was a squabble at San Romano where a father and son were involved in a homicide. Concerning this I questioned two or three witnesses who testified very bravely that father and son were guilty of it. I sent the testimony to the captain. Next I learned (not because the captain ever advised me or said anything about it) that the father had been put in jail and then I heard that he was freed and pardoned. My Most Illustrious Lord, it seems to me that if in these dealings there was no fraud, they would not have hesitated to communicate them to me. And I fear that the captain, already struggling with the men of his region who are denying him his reward for having put to death a thug, has put into place that which he has said in the presence of many respectable men, namely that since they refused to pay him the reward for his execution of justice, he would string up their money bags in the future and not

89

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

the crooks. I have not written this to report bad deeds but to warn Your Excellency so that if you hear reports that justice is not carried out here, you will not think that it is my fault. I would have been more bold to rebuke them except that they allege that they bought the office and that it is necessary to reassess everything. Nevertheless, whether they buy it or have it given to them, they should allow me to participate concerning these things that matter. Next, there is a certain Messer Zan Iacomo,83 currently living at the abbey of Frassinoro, to whom I am obliged by the respect he always shows me and my staff whenever I come and go and send things back and forth. For this reason but more because I believe he is a loyal servant of Your Excellency, I respect him and I wish the very best for him. He has written to me the letter I enclose in which he laments, as Your Excellency will see. Your Excellency may judge if he laments justly or not. Concerning this I have much faith in you because, as far as I can tell from what I know about him, he is very loyal and kindly disposed to you. Ser Tito, the notary here, could also provide a more exact testimony of this to you. He writes as he has often tried to persuade me that Domenico d’Amorotto is a loyal servant of Your Excellency. Whether this is true or not, Your Excellency will know better than I. For my part I am not at all sure of this high opinion of Domenico because I have seen his actions in the past that contradict it. Since he is more powerful in this area than any of Your Excellency’s officials, it is not a bad idea to show that you think that he is more readily a friend than an enemy until the day when Messer God All Mighty sees to it that we are more powerful than he is. I have worked out up to now to keep him as a friend and to persuade him that Your Excellency takes him to be a good servant. I believe that this is the reason that up to now he has not harmed this province (taking sides in our politics). If what I write here appears good to Your Excellency, I beg that you make every effort to keep Domenico a friend or at least not an enemy. If it seems to you that I am doing other than I should, please straighten me out. I also need to relay to Your Excellency that recently two priests, one from Reggio and the other here from Sillano, sent to Lucca by Domenico d’Amorotto, went to visit Lord Alberto da Carpi.84 Domenico was asking to be made commissioner both of the plain of

90

Letters

Reggio and of the mountain. And they were accompanied here by one to whom they said what they were going to do. He reported it to me and told me that Lord Alberto did for Domenico as much as he asked. Here people are saying that Pierino Magnano paid a visit to Your Excellency. If it is true, I wait to hear from you about whether or not I should confiscate his property. I had a small quantity of grain in his possession shipped before some people showed up (as I have also written) who claim to have bought it from the son. I have had the grain brought here to the castle and I will have some wine brought too along with everything else of his we find that is movable capital. But I will not make any more contracts until I have advice from Your Excellency except that I will pay the crossbowmen and cover the costs of moving them. I do not need anything else for now; in gratitude to Your Excellency I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 25 November 1522. Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 56 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto frets about his authority to dispense salaries for the crossbowmen and other officials and he continues to worry about the plague, asking permission to come home if the disease strikes the Garfagnana.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. In order to confiscate the movable assets of Pierino in Castelnuovo and outside the town, I sent my clerk. Since I did not think it was safe enough for him to go there alone, I sent some crossbowmen and their leader to accompany him. Once in the vicinity of our town and then three times outside of it the crossbowmen rode to a place four miles away from here called Villa. The first time they went to confiscate the goods, they consigned them to the priest in Villa. Because I did not think that that was the best place to store them, I wanted them to return and hand them over to the provincial official in Villa. The third time they went to have the things transported here, they brought back a large quantity of grain

91

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

and they were ordered to bring a little bit of wine too. Now not knowing how I ought to compensate the clerk, the crossbowmen, and their leader, I wrote recently to the Magnificent Ducal Judicial Council to advise me on how to pay them. The judges answered that I should do the usual and pay them as little as possible. Satisfied with these amounts, I sent the rest to the tax assessor of the Treasury. If I knew for certain what this custom was, I would not have had to ask the opinion of your judges, but here there is no law or document of any sort that I have been able to find that addresses the recompense of the assessors point by point. The crossbowmen demand one-fourth of a ducat each time out, the captain, one ducat, and if they carry out an assessment in Castelnuovo, they ask for half this amount. They say that this is the norm. For these assessments the captain would get three and a half ducats and every crossbowman, three-fourths and a half. I do not address the clerk’s pay because he is with me and he will be happy with whatever I decide. I said that the captain should get two ducats and each crossbowman, one-half ducat apiece, and everyone complained that I wanted to take what was rightfully theirs. I beseech Your Excellency (so that I will not have to argue another time) to take note that these men who have to obey me wish me ill. I beg you to clarify the usual procedure in Your Excellency’s other territories to satisfy the crossbowmen for the sort of jobs they are doing. I beseech you to take care of things such that I am properly instructed as regards criminals and the Treasury. Write me such a letter and I will have it registered in the statutes here so that in the future neither I nor my successors will be confused about such legalities. By God’s grace here we are living in peaceful tranquillity and everything would be going fine if it were not for the proximity of some lands infected by the plague. But the Captain of Justice and I and some good men from this area do not stop in collecting up the needed provisions. There is the danger that we will have to deal with rough country folk who cannot be easily kept from their commerce. Nevertheless God has helped us out up to this point as I hope he will do in the future. But if it happens that someone is infected with the plague, I beseech Your Excellency that you please allow me to pack up and come home without writing

92

Letters

again. In any other place I might have the courage to avoid the plague except here, where I have country folk within earshot and there is no one who is in greater danger than me. Here people say that Pierino is in Ferrara. If that is true, I hope that Your Excellency will advise us of it. These other men from the borders, that is, Coiaio and Casaia, have written letters to our community begging them to write to Your Excellency and ask you to send them home. They promise to do a miraculous number of good deeds. Your letter was read on Sunday by the council. Not a single man out of the nearly forty here responded pro or contra. I wanted to advise Your Excellency about this; in gratitude I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 26 November 1522. Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 57 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto recounts the details of a legal squabble involving one of the citizens from the region of Trassilico.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Iacopino da Convalle, whom Your Lordships sent to me for the disagreement he is having with his in-laws, requests that I testify to you about how much I have done in his case. Your Lordships will understand how on his behalf I summoned the relatives, one of whom is called Gian Iacopo. He is the leader to whom his brothers defer. But he was not able to appear in court because earlier I had forbidden him to leave his house, which was in an area under suspicion of plague. And when the period of suspicion had passed, the region that he is in was also suspect and people from there were also prohibited from coming into this region for the same reason. So he was not able to come to court except at the final order. I have reported this because Iacopino would like to have his expenses covered before his hearing. In my opinion it is not right to do that and to assess the expenses until I have recognized the merits of the case. Iacopino produced two certificates. One shows that twenty-two ducats were promised him as a dowry and this

93

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

document was introduced into the evidence and cited in part. Then he produced another document that shows that they were not in agreement according to those original pacts. His in-laws had promised him twenty-five ducats but we did not include this in the legal transcription of the case. The in-laws claim that they satisfied their commitments with the dowry and then some. Iacopino denies this. My intention was to postpone things so that the in-laws could prove their case. Iacopino disapproves of this course and petitions that I report to Your Lordships how the case currently stands. Thus I do and to you I always commend myself. Iacopino’s in-laws claim that they have proof in the region of Borgo and that they were about to have the document brought forth, but because they are believed to be under suspicion of the plague, they would put lives in danger. Castelnuovo, 12 December 1522. Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 58 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto repeats a request for a ratified agreement on the border dispute between Lucca and the Garfagnana.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Because I fear that a letter I wrote recently to Your Lordships on the same subject as this one did not make it into your hands on account of the bearer, I will repeat my request in the same tone to inform you that My Most Illustrious Lord gave me the order to remind Your Lordships that two years have passed since a declaration about the border was made between the community of Vallico di Sopra and that of Cardoso, with the intervention of the commissioners on both sides. A contractual agreement was drawn up and a ratified confirmation was sent by my Lord to Your Lordships. Your Lordships for your part did not ever send it back to His Excellency. Since His Excellency desires to have things carried out to the proper end, he ordered me to write to you and ask that you please send it to him. Wherefore I beg you to send it as soon as you can so that His Excellency does not accuse me of negligence.

94

Letters

Further, the men from Vallico complain that, contrary to the terms of the agreement, some men from Cardoso have trespassed and ploughed and planted seeds in territory that is not theirs. I beg Your Lordships please to find out the truth and that you not tolerate that our citizens endure such bad deeds. To you I always commend myself. Castelnuovo, end of the year 1522. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 59 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs Ariosto asks for help in dealing with a renegade priest who has taken the law into his own hands.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence. In Florence. Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. It happened that a certain man, known as Pretaccio from Barga, and a subject of Your Excellencies, was trying to arrange for a young girl from here be married to his son.85 She was betrothed to the young man by her guardians. And while the plans were proceeding for the wedding, the young girl (led I know not by what fate) entered a Franciscan convent near Castelnuovo and took on the habit of a nun. But before she could take her vows, I worked with her guardians and relatives to do everything possible to change her mind so that the matrimony might be carried out. However, I did not get what I wanted. For this reason Pretaccio was dissatisfied and wanted to take her by force, threatening her guardians and the nuns excessively. I complained about it to the Captain of Barga and His Magnificence gave me a very reasonable and timely response. But before we knew it Pretaccio came through the middle of Castelnuovo last night with more than fifty armed men and went to a property near here that belonged to the girl’s family and established himself there as the man in charge. He is still there now. I warned him that he should break camp immediately and I am not sure what will happen next. It seemed proper to turn to Your Excellencies to ask you please to write immediately and

95

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

to work things out so that this subject of yours resists using violence and complies with the practice of the law. We do not want him to infect the subjects of My Most Illustrious Lord or yours with any enmity. I believe that the will of Our Lords is unified; they are optimally disposed toward each other. In gratitude to Your Excellencies I commend myself to you always. Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 7 January 1523. Of Your Lords Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner of the Garfagnana. Letter 60 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto assures the Luccans that the plague has not spread into his area and he asks that his brother Galasso be given permission to enter Lucca on his way to Carrara.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Because Your Lordships have probably learned that there is the suspicion of plague at Pieve Fosciana, a place between your town of Castiglione and this area of Castelnuovo, thinking that the situation is graver and more dangerous than it is, you perhaps will have prohibited those coming from here to enter Lucca. I verify for Your Lordships that Luca Pierotto has been infected by one of his sons, who secretly had gone somewhere (we do not know where exactly), and that two or three people in his family have died. But we immediately took care of the situation and had the whole family moved to a separate site and all those who live in Pieve were forbidden to go beyond the borders of the village, although the plague has not been found in any other house, thanks be to God. In Castelnuovo there is no plague or any suspicion of it and we are on the keenest alert. I write this to Your Lordships so that you may know how things are and to beg you please to allow the bearer of this letter, my brother Messer Galasso Ariosto, to enter the city and find lodging. He has come from Ferrara to go to Carrara to meet the Most Reverend Cardinal Cibo, his patron. I will be most pleased if Your Lordships can do this. I thank you for the copy of that ratification

96

Letters

pertaining to the men of Vallico and Cardoso that you sent me recently. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 29 January 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 61 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto asks that a citizen under the Este be given a fair hearing in Lucca concerning various legal problems.

On behalf of Giovanni da Montepulciano. Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Giovanni da Montepulciano, the bearer of this letter, will have Your Lordships know of a wrong he has suffered at the hands of one of those men whose goods have been confiscated by Your Lordships because of their illegal activities. He tells me that the Honourable Baldassari da Montecatino86 is informed about everything. If you question him, he will be able to provide you with a trustworthy report. I beg Your Lordships please to extend this poor man every favour and appropriate aid, for justice, for pity (since he is a good person who deserves to be helped), and for your love of me. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 18 January 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Postscript. May Your Lordships not be amazed if this letter has been delayed. The cause has been the suspicion here that one could not enter Lucca. In any case, whenever someone from here comes before you, I beg you to accept that person for your love of me. Castelnuovo, 17 February 1523. Letter 62 to the Elders of Lucca Another plea for a coherent multilateral policy against the bandits in reference to previous letters 40, 48, and 53.

97

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Having recently been in Ferrara, My Most Illustrious Lord has ordered me to reiterate to Your Lordships what I have written before, namely that you please be sure that bandits from our ducal province do not find safe haven in Your Lordships’ land and vice versa. You realize that the murders and other criminal activities that continue to take place in these lands under the jurisdiction of Your Lordships, the Florentine Lords, and My Most Illustrious Lord – lands all jumbled up together with confused borders – are being dealt with poorly. Nor do I see any remedy to keep the situation from quickly going from bad to worse, unless Your Lordships come to my aid in this way: do not give our outlaws refuge in your lands. And also see to it that when we give the alarm to track down these bad people your territories rush to help. We will stand ready to do the same for Your Lordships. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 10 April 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 63 to the Elders of Lucca A second request (cf. letter 61) that a citizen of the Este be given a fair hearing.

On behalf of Giovanni da Montepulciano. Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Recently I wrote a letter to Your Lordships about Giovanni da Montepulciano having been wronged by one of those men who had their goods confiscated because of illegal activities. Your constable, Baccio del Fava, and the Honourable Baldassari Montecatini are fully informed about the situation. If asked, they can provide a faithful and reliable report. I beg Your Lordships please to allow this poor man to get what he is owed in a timely way, if not all of it at least part of it. I beg that you do this for justice, for pity (since he is a good person who deserves to be helped), and for your love of me.87 May it not be a burden for you to

98

Letters

notify us of your decision. You are aware that it would be charitable for you to make fair restitution to him, since he has suffered such extensive damages. Your Lordships will understand from the letter enclosed everything that Giovanni himself is requesting, who commends himself to you in gratitude. And to Your Lordships I commend and offer myself. Castelnuovo, 11 April 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 64 to Alfonso d’Este A report on the problem of bandits and on how to come up with funding to support security or, in lieu of such funding, how to set up a citizenry militia. Finally, a note on local mushrooms and trout.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. On my arrival here88 I discovered that there were about sixty bandits including men from Costa da Pontecchio along with the sons of Pelegrin dal Sillico and some Lombards from the side of Virgilio da Castagneto in the Garfagnana. In addition to what they had done up to that time, which the captain says he reported to Your Excellency, they went to Sillicagnana, where they caught a decent fellow named Capello, bound him, led him away, and then murdered him. Feeling that it was largely my fault, and Your Excellency’s too, that they were able to carry on here without any opposition at all, I strongly encouraged the men from Castelnuovo to get together and hunt them down. But I have not been able to get them to do that since they do not trust one another and they were afraid that the bandits were in the area with the approval of the Italian faction.89 I decided to fulfil my duty and negotiate an agreement with the men from Sillano, who were the only ones in this whole province to whom the bandits had shown their faces, with whom they had been in some scuffles. This past Monday morning fifty of these men met at Camporgiano so that I might

99

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

discern which of them I could count on more quickly. The prior evening I sent orders to the region of Trassilico that those who could bear arms should be at Camporgiano that Monday. And then without breathing a word to anyone, Monday morning at daybreak in a huge rain, I set out from Castelnuovo with the crossbowmen, that is with ten of them, since their captain and one of the men remained at Castelnuovo because they were wounded. Having sent someone ahead at midnight to call the men from Turrita, the village nearest here, with about forty men in addition to the crossbowmen, I set off toward Camporgiano expecting to meet the men from Sillano there. But those farmers did not move at all, as if this thing had nothing to do with them. All the others who had been ordered eventually straggled in. I had to send someone to call up the men from Sillano, since without them I did not think that we would be able to succeed. They are armed and would be good in a fight. The others, for their part, are not much of a foundation to build on. While I was lingering over this, notification of the arrival of the men from Castelnuovo was circulating, which put me more at ease for searching and finding others.90 Finally the men from Sillano did arrive, about six of them, and they gave me a rather muddled excuse that they had not really understood me. Then they verified for me that all the Lombards together with Philippo Pachione, Bernardello and Battistino Magnano, had left and returned along the edge of the mountain. Bertagnetta and three others from Pontecchio, who had separated in a disagreement with their companions, were at Pontecchio. They were certain that their information was accurate and that no one would be expecting anything and that if I wanted to go burn down houses, it would be possible for me to burn down half the land. So it was that the people of Camporgiano and all the others begged me not to burn down everything, for that would have ruined the area. For this reason and seeing that I was too late to catch the bandits and seeing that no one was coming along to help me willingly and realizing that as soon as there was any contest, I would be abandoned as had already happened two other times to the crossbowmen (the first time by the men from Castelnuovo against the men from Barga, the other by those from Camporgiano against the bandits), it seemed right to allow the people

100

Letters

to disperse. Immediately the bandits from Pontecchio sent a delegation of men who begged (as per the letter from Bertagnetta here enclosed) to be able to see Your Excellency. In no way do I think that we should give them safe passage to Ferrara. I am in favour of using the right words with them to reassure them as much as possible, doing with my wits what I cannot do with brute strength. I had warned the commissioners of Frignano, Fivizzano, and some others, and the Lords of Lucca, that it seemed good to me to close down the passes in case these thugs wanted to run away. But while I delayed in giving these warnings (which I could not do secretly enough to keep their supporters, that is, all the people on the Italian side from Castelnuovo, from being aware of it and notifying them), they broke camp and returned to Lombardy. I want Your Excellency to understand everything so that you can think and advise me on how to govern, because truly if we do not make some provisions this province will go from bad to worse and Your Excellency will be its Lord in name only. The government will in effect be run by these criminals with the bosses and their supporters that they have in the province, especially at Castelnuovo. Yesterday at Camporgiano I called together the council and proposed three things: that they be content to confer with the other districts of the Garfagnana about accepting fifteen or twenty foot soldiers with muskets in addition to the crossbowmen who are there and that they pay them for a month or two until this province is made safe and peaceful. I have not been able to persuade them to accept this. On the contrary, some elderly citizens stood up and began recalling the olden days and complained that in contrast to the assemblies that they had when they first committed themselves to the House of Este, Your Excellency has placed on them the burden of the crossbowmen. They added that the castellans91 used to stay in the fortifications, their salaries covered by the community, but they were of no use to the locals. The castellans were also required to house two, three, or four servants, of whom some would serve the commissioner. These men were more feared and were more apt to keep the province at peace than the crossbowmen were. I answered them as I saw fit. But in the end there was not a man who would agree to increase the cost of protection; rather they insisted that the cost of the

101

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

crossbowmen be lifted off their backs or at least that the money spent on the crossbowmen be spent instead on so many infantry that there would be a greater number of them. In this rocky area cavalry are no good, whereas infantrymen can march more quietly over trails and mountainsides, night and day, where horses cannot go. I wanted to write you their opinion. Your Excellency will decide to do with it what you will. I proposed that they form a battalion of two or three hundred foot soldiers in the district with their own leaders. Further, I proposed that they be given some weapons – muskets or crossbows or pikes – so that they would always be ready to fight back if Lombards or others from outside want to bother them. I am sure that they would not help if I wanted to carry out an execution against bandits or criminals. They wanted to undertake this on their own and so I have begun to give them the go-ahead. There are four districts. I will try to get each one to do its part in order that I can at least do something against the incursions of outsiders. I proposed a third option to them: that they give me the authority to levy twenty-five ducats per each delinquent because I intended to put a bounty on the heads of these criminals. I proposed that they not respond out loud but that they vote secretly with beans to keep tally so that each one individually would not be recognized for his vote and harmed by the bandits. I was certain that they were much more afraid of the bandits, that they were more compliant around them, and that they paid obeisance more readily to them than to Your Lordship. The official auditors were the first to respond that they would authorize the Council of Eight, since they are the ones vested with the power to spend for the communities. The Council of Eight answered that if they did so all eight of them would be sure to die. I asked them to take a secret ballot with beans again and they began to stand up and leave the room all together, telling me that they did not want to take a position on this issue. If they did, they were sure that the bandits would consider them all enemies. They would take vengeance on them merely for their having agreed to cast a vote on such a topic. Now Your Excellency can understand how frightened this whole area is by the presence of six or ten thugs.

102

Letters

Finally the eight who were sitting nearest to me said that they would be glad to pay this levy, given its potential impact, but that they did not want to initiate the payments on their own. Instead they would rather it appear that they were constrained by Your Excellency to do so. They said that it would be good if you commissioned me with a letter or a proclamation to put a bounty on these thugs, so that if one of them killed another, he would no longer be subject to the ban and he would earn ten ducats because they would rather have the money than be rehabilitated. Your Excellency should now bear all this in mind and let me know what I should do because I cannot make these decisions on my own without your help and advice. In order to fulfil your request about the mushrooms and trout,92 coming from Montefiorino and finding the Commissioner of Sestola, I had him immediately dispatch a messenger with a few mushrooms which had been prepared there by him. I think that Your Excellency received them. I immediately had someone fish for some trout but up to now I have not been able to get more than three very small ones, which I immediately had marinated. If I get more of them before I dispatch the messenger with the other items, I will send them along. If not, Your Excellency will be pleased with these few. The water here is still chilly, perhaps too cold for catching fish. I have messengers out searching for mushrooms. If they find some, I will send them together with the fish. But this area is at a much higher elevation than Frignano and therefore it is slower to produce crops, so that Your Excellency will excuse me if I am not able to discharge my duty as much as I might like. There is nothing else to report. In gratitude I commend myself very humbly. Castelnuovo, 15 April 1523. Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Another item: I forgot to tell Your Excellency that the entire council of Camporgiano pleaded with me to give these bandits safe-conduct to stay in our lands, proposing that they be given assurances according to the terms in their letter enclosed. I answered that this could not be done without your knowledge and that I would notify you. Your Excellency should also know this: in order to belittle my office, the bandits, when they were all together before they left this area,

103

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

had a proclamation93 made in which they promised to give to whoever turned the vice-commissioner over to them alive two hundred ducats, one hundred if dead. The captain himself told me this and he is sure they really meant it. Letter 65 to Alfonso d’Este After recounting how he is dealing with the bandits and those who give them aid, Ariosto wonders if he is too kind for the job.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I have just now received a letter from Your Excellency in which you instruct me on what to do about these bandits who have yet again committed the sort of excessive crimes that the Captain of Justice has mentioned before. But because in another one of my letters, which I sent to Your Excellency via the Commissioner of Frignano, I outline how much I have done and what my plan would be to catch these thugs, I will not do anything else until I have new orders from you. We can always burn down their houses but I do not yet have a way to get my hands on the delinquents unless I wait for the right moment and am very clever. Nevertheless I will send your letter to the Commissioner of Frignano so that he may govern his people as I request and dispense the help I seek from him. As per my proclamations, I have fined the men of Poggio two hundred ducats for having refused to follow the captain of the crossbowmen and for having been the first to give the bandits food and drink, although I think that they did this out of fear rather than good will.94 Further, I fined them because they did not fulfil their obligation to sound the alarm or to notify my office, and also to make an example of them. I also think that I will not let the men from Camporgiano off with impunity if I can proceed justly. They come up with many excuses, for example, that the bandits outnumber all the people and that the crossbowmen arrived all of a sudden and were routed so quickly that they did not have time to take up arms. The situation will be reviewed further. Similarly in Pontecosi they were asked to help and did

104

Letters

not want to follow orders. If I fine them, I am not likely to get any payment from them. It will be for Your Excellency to grant them a pardon through which I hope you would be able to satisfy the financial stake of the captain and that poor crossbowman whose horse died. Next point: since the time is approaching when this Captain of Justice will step down from office – June is the end of his term – I am afraid of staying here without a companion or with someone else who may be sent here in his place who is not like him in regard to the office. As I have written and reported in person, he is forceful and a man to fear and obey. With this severity he tempers that defect of mine that some here in Castelnuovo have commented upon, namely my being too good. Wherefore if someone else were sent here who similarly is too good, I fear that he and I together would create a mixture not worth much. Therefore I beg Your Excellency not to let him depart until you have identified another man like him; he will be here at least through August. There is nothing else to report at the moment. In gratitude to Your Excellency I commend myself very humbly. Castelnuovo, 16 April 1523. Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 66 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto recounts the criminal activity of a local priest whom he would like to punish, but he fears ecclesiastical reprisals against his own benefices. He is troubled by the limits of secular law when confronted with criminal activities by members of the Church. The artist seems to enjoy recounting this narrative. One wonders about the extent to which Alfonso (or his secretaries) enjoyed reading such tales.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. While I was recently in Ferrara,95 it happened that two sons of Evangelista dal Sillico in disguise entered the house of a young woman here in Castelnuovo at night. The woman is known to be the secret mistress of a well-to-do man from around here and yet she is not a common whore. She

105

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

spends her days among the decent ladies who do not shun her. The two men grabbed her to take her away from her house by force. She screamed and was helped. The next morning she went to complain to the captain. For this action one of Evangelista’s sons, who goes by the name of Father Job – he is a priest who has taken holy orders – found the mother of the girl and smashed her skull, leaving her for dead. She was in danger of dying for many days. The captain filed proceedings against him and fined him two hundred lire. Evangelista produced the official papers on his son’s ordination and had a decree of inhibition sent by the bishop of Lucca. For this and other reasons the captain halted the proceedings so that Father Job returned to Castelnuovo. This sets a bad example and it disturbs me greatly. If I were not fearful of ecclesiastical censure against my benefices, I would not care about the fact that he is a priest and I would punish him worse than I would a lay person. And if I could not do anything else, I would at least send him into exile. For if the civil authorities really do not have any power over those of the Church, then I do not think that clerics ought to be able to stay in the territory if the authorities do not wish to have them there. I wanted to write Your Excellency about this matter so that you may deal with it as you see fit. Whatever you decide, please give the order to the captain rather than me, since he does not have benefices from the Church as I do. In gratitude to Your Excellency I commend myself very humbly. Castelnuovo, 17 April 1523. Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Postscript. I had written to the bishop of Lucca, whose diocese includes Castelnuovo, and to the bishop of Luni, who is the superior of the priests of Camporgiano, to ask that they give me authority over the priests. The bishop of Lucca is currently in Milan so I did not get an answer. The one from Luni did respond with the letter here enclosed through which Your Excellency can conclude that if we turn to the bishops we will get little help. And I also learned from this experience this past summer: I handed over to the bishop of Lucca that priest Matheo, a murderer and public criminal, who had wounded my secretary, and with a splash of water the bishop absolved him and sent him away. Before I came here, a priest named Antonio da Soraggio, who

106

Letters

had killed one of his uncles, was handed over to the bishop of Luni, who freed him with a quick prayer of mercy. Letter 67 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto tries to disentangle a dispute at the border with Lucca, first raised in letter 58.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The men of Vallico have pleaded with me to try to petition for a pardon from Your Lordships for one of their own, Belgrado, a prisoner of yours. They could not tell me what Belgrado has done wrong this time other than to say that he is accused of wanting to levy fines on certain individuals whose names I do not know. In his defence they add that these men owed him money. They say that he tried to get his money back that way rather than intending to take what did not belong to him. This act, though one of foul play, since it is not right for anyone to take the law into his own hands, still is worthy of indulgence and forgiveness, since I, for the affection and love I bear you, intercede on his behalf. Thus as much as I know and am able, I beg and plead with Your Lordships. And if indeed in the past this fellow Belgrado brazenly harmed your subjects and helped his own in the disputes between Vallico and Cardoso, I beg you not to reopen those wounds now closed and that you forgive any harmful things he did. I will be continuously obliged to Your Lordships and I will store up my obligation with the other debts I have incurred to you. I know that My Most Illustrious Lord will be pleased with you. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 18 April 1523. Of Your Lordships Most devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 68 to the Elders of Lucca A plea for safe-conduct for a subject, even though Ariosto seems suspicious of his innocence.

107

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Cesari di Antonio, son of Evangelista da Vallico, committed a murder together with some men from Coreglia. Because he claims that those companions of his received safe-conduct from Your Lordships, he has turned to me in the hopes that my intercession will help him gain the same. He has begged me to plead with Your Lordships that you treat him as you have treated others of equal culpability. Inasmuch as I am charged to protect the subjects of My Most Illustrious Lord as best I know how to and can, I commend myself to Your Lordships and ask that you allow Cesari to be placed under safe-conduct as you have done for the men from Coreglia, followers of Iacopo da Castiglione. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 19 April 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 69 to the Elders of Lucca Another request for a reciprocal policy on dealing with bandits who cross the borders between Luccan and Estense territories

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. From a letter of your Lordships on the 16th of this month I have learned about your willingness to respond to requests by My Most Illustrious Lord and I have learned that to follow through you are about to send your own commissioner. You ask me further if I have authority from My Most Illustrious Lord that enables me to do likewise. I have no new mandate in writing other than what His Excellency long ago commanded me to do in one of his letters, namely that I work with Your Lordships to prevent our bandits from finding safe haven in your territory and your bandits from doing likewise in ours. I have written two or three times to Your Lordships and you answered me that you would confer on this issue and notify me of your decision. But perhaps because you have been caught up in greater things, you never sent me the resolution of your deliberations. Recently I was in

108

Letters

Ferrara and My Lord, the Duke, ordered me again to try to establish an alliance with you on this, since His Excellency has yet again written to you. I have no other mandate and no other order in writing. Truly I assure you that everything that I can do to bring peace to the Garfagnana, of equal concern to both Your Lordships and His Excellency, he will appreciate and will agree to ratify. But I will not give advice before I hear about the limits of my authority, if Your Lordships do decide to send your own commissioner. If it seems better that you await a new order from the Duke, you will do as you think best. To your best advice I commit myself always and once again in gratitude I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 19 April 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 70 to the Elders of Lucca Another letter on the border disputes at the southern tip of the Garfagnana, here dealing with pasturing rights.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The men of Vallico are complaining that every day the men of Cardoso pasture their livestock beyond the boundaries set up by the commissioners of Your Lordships, on the one hand, and those of My Most Illustrious Lord, on the other. They lament that in so doing the Cardosans are harming them seriously and trampling on their rights. I beg Your Lordships please to warn your subjects to be calm and peaceful concerning all that has been done already or to allow the men from Vallico to take any animals from Cardoso grazing on their property and lead them here to Castelnuovo so that the Cardosans suffer the penalty for the harm and transgression they cause. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 20 April 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto.

109

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 71 to the Elders of Lucca Following up on previous requests.96

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Provided that the commissioner of Your Lordships comes, I will honour him and pay him respect, as I must, willingly. Again I commend Belgrado and Giovanni da Montepulciano to you. In gratitude I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 23 April 1523. Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 72 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto recounts why he fined the town of Ceserana for harbouring bandits and he details the capture of the ringleader, Moro.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Your Excellency may know that a Pisan priest was assaulted in the municipality of Ceserana by one Nicodemo and one Minello, Florentine citizens who used to live in Ceserana, and according to the priest, by one Giugliano, son of Pelegrin dal Sillico and a bandit (and one of those who murdered Ser Ferdiano). But some of the people from Castelnuovo who are under the protection of these men from Sillico do not want the priest to say that Giugliano was there and for this reason they have frequently threatened him and they are continuing to do so. Nevertheless the truth is that Giugliano was there. Giugliano with his accomplices and brother Baldone and other bandits has always lived in Ceserana at the home of his wife, where the wife of his brother, Moro, also lives. They have the two sisters as wives and they share the house, notwithstanding the order that people should not give refuge to the bandits and notwithstanding that in the municipality I have frequently declared prohibitions with public proclamations and with specific orders in writing and verbally, especially to this man Moro and his wife. I told

110

Letters

them that they risked the penalty of Your Excellency’s displeasure to have their house burned down if they allowed bandits into it. For these various acts of disobedience and for this priest having been attacked by the aforementioned, I fined the municipality of Ceserana three hundred ducats before I learned that the municipality was not as guilty as Moro. I learned that the citizens had offended out of fear and they were not able to do anything else, since Moro and his brothers with their bandit followers, given their knowledge of Castelnuovo, have turned into tyrants and lords of that area. But I lashed out at the municipality because at the time I did not see any other way to catch these criminals and Moro, their protector, promoter, and accomplice. I did not think it would do Your Excellency any honour if this priest were to go around complaining about having been assaulted in your territory. Then Your Excellency, combining justice and mercy, was content to pardon the municipality as long as they compensated the priest for his damages. Since I still had in mind that whoever committed the sin should serve the penance for it, I arranged things so that Moro came to talk with me.97 I had him arrested and put in prison, not only for the fact that they divided up the money stolen during the robbery in his house (and I believe he kept a large portion of it), although for this action he would deserve a very large punishment, but also because he is responsible for the majority of the assaults that take place in this province. Sometimes he has been in San Pellegrino with the men from Barga and those from Sommacolonia, then in the area of Camporgiano with the men from Costa, then with the men from Temporia, in such a way that I concluded that he lorded over all the Garfagnana’s countryside. I beg Your Excellency that if someone comes before you insisting on representing him as a man who is contrary to the man he actually is, do not be moved to commute his just deserts. I request that you hand this case over to the Captain of Castelnuovo and not to me, since it is not my job. For this case give the captain the responsibility of the commissioner. If this one time we do not punish the wicked in our land, they will multiply in infinite numbers. Next Your Excellency should also know that the day before yesterday one of his brothers, a bandit called Baldone, with about twelve or fifteen companions, went to Camporgiano and used a scoundrel

111

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

named Margutte as a foil so that he, Baldone, could murder a blacksmith named Gianetto, also from Camporgiano. But the poor wretch was lucky and did not die although he received two wounds. Returning toward Ceserana, when they were at a village called Sambuca they took a pair of oxen from a man named Zan Grasso and led them away. Zan Grasso came running to me in Castelnuovo – it was early evening – and I immediately had the crossbowmen go out on horseback. The robbers left the oxen when they heard the crossbowmen coming and fled toward Ceserana. Then Bastiano Coiaio came to me as if he were the spokesperson of all the criminals. He wanted to persuade me that these men had gone to Camporgiano to have Margutte make peace with Gianetto and that Margutte, against the will of his companions, had wanted to kill Gianetto. He said that they had not taken the oxen to lead them away but to scare a boy to the point that he might show them a hat that one of them had lost along the way. I wanted to tell Your Excellency this excuse of his so that you understand the situation. You will recognize the truth from lies so that these protectors of thieves do not turn black into white. Today I took the testimonies of about four witnesses who say that a year has passed since Moro and his brothers were in Poggio with the two men from Sommacolonia where they murdered a poor fellow who was one of your subjects. I await your comments on this in case you give an explicit order to the captain here. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 25 April 1523. Of Your Excellency Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 73 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto protests the hike in fees to shepherds in the Garfagnana.98

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The shepherds of this ducal province, especially those from the region of Castelnuovo, complain that the customs officials in Lucca are constraining them to pay higher taxes than usual for their livestock. I have learned that they have done this to them at other times in the

112

Letters

past and that my predecessors in this position protested about it to Your Lordships. In addition I learned that you prohibited it and made new declarations to establish that from one side to another nothing is to be changed. I wanted you to know about a new development: unbeknownst to you, many of the collection officials are trying to change things in the hope that Your Lordships will not notice, I believe, because you are not involved. The shepherds from here want to have reciprocal exemptions that the men of this area give to your subjects. From you I hope to hear that you will not tolerate this wrong. And in gratitude I commend myself. Castelnuovo, last day of April 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 74 to the Elders of Lucca In response to a previous request mentioned in letter 69, Ariosto shares the official note from Alfonso that grants him authority to deal with the bandits and again he asks for a reciprocal policy on them.

So that the bandits not be safe in either territory, in that of the Garfagnana and in ours. Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Since Your Lordships had asked me recently if I had enough authority from My Most Illustrious Lord to be able to negotiate and come to agreements with you or with the commissioner that you are about to send here, about which for many of my letters I have sought an answer, I immediately wrote to His Excellency and he sent me a licence reproduced here. ‘Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio, Marquis of Este, Count of Rovigo. Since the Magnificent and Excellent Lords of Lucca, our honourable friends, share our wish and opinion, namely that the bandits of their territory not have safe refuge or haven in our lands in the Garfagnana, nor that our bandits and rebels similarly take refuge in the jurisdiction and territory of these same Lords of Lucca, and since they

113

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

want to send a commissioner with full authority to you, our commissioner in the Garfagnana, to draw up accords and agreements about this situation, the result of which will be an abundance of communal benefit and peace to their subjects and ours as well as the removal of many outrages, murders, and crimes, which are committed with greater passion if carried out by delinquents who could be saved, we are delighted if between the Magnificent Commissioner of the Lords of Lucca and you, accords and agreements are drawn up and confirmed which should declare that the bandits and rebels on both sides have no safe refuge and haven, neither ours in their territory nor theirs in ours. Furthermore, every time that you want our crossbowmen and captain to go and catch any bandit and rebel of ours who has fled into the territory of Their Lordships, their captain is obliged to help in any way possible and ours is obliged to do the same for theirs, to capture bandits as necessary with reciprocal aid using all our force and power as well as theirs. To conclude, please confirm and establish similar accords and agreements with the commissioner whom the Lords of Lucca will send using this letter as your licence, Ludovico Ariosto, our commissioner in the province of Garfagnana, to whom we grant and allow ample, full, and legitimate authority, promising to have ratified, confirmed, and approved with the Magnificent Commissioner of the Lords of Lucca, who are about to send said commissioner to this good and praiseworthy effect. In good faith we have written this letter and sealed it with our usual seal. Dictated in Ferrara, in our residential palace, on the 27th of April 1523.’ Your Lordships see the intention of My Most Illustrious Lord. Now at your pleasure you may send your commissioner. For my part I will always be ready to receive him with that reverence that is my duty. And in gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, last day of April 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 75 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto writes on behalf of one of the ducal citizens who has been detained with a load of salt in Lucca.

114

Letters

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The bearer of this letter, Peregrino, who lives in Corfino in the ducal province, has filed a complaint that while returning from Pisa with his pack animals laden with salt, he was detained at Lucca without being told why. He has not been given permission to depart from Lucca for three days nor has he been told why he is being detained. He has had recourse to me so that I might commend him to Your Lordships at least to learn why this has happened to him so that, if the case is stated against him, he may exculpate himself of the charge. I commend him to Your Lordships that you not let him suffer any wrong and if he has made some mistake, that you swiftly show him mercy and pity. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, last day of April 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 76 to Alfonso d’Este A lengthy report, now damaged and incomplete, on bandits, taxing the locals to raise money to provide security for them, and revisiting the problem of criminal priests.

My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Concerning what Your Lordship writes me about not having to send those infantrymen or those battalions, I submit myself to your decision as you deem best. I do think, however, that it is strange that foreigners99 join up with the bandits of our province in groups of eighty or one hundred to burn, murder, and pillage our land and we have no way to respond to them. If I could have thought of a better remedy, I would have proposed it. On putting a bounty on the outlaws, I believe that I wrote that not only did the council of Camporgiano conclude against doing it but it was not even allowed to go to a vote. When I ordered them to vote by casting beans, everyone all together got up and left the room. But the members of the Council of Eight who were sitting nearest me said that I should set it up on my own authority and then that I should have it paid for by the district’s administration since the majority was against

115

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

it. Then they said that it would be good to have an order about this from Your Excellency so that I could execute it confidently. To that end it would be helpful if Your Excellency ordered me in writing to declare a proclamation on your behalf to put a bounty of ten ducats on each of the outlaws who acted criminally. I should be ordered to have it paid by the community for the good of this entire province so that the criminals would not be making the situation any worse; rather they would be providing something useful if we could eradicate them from our country. I am fairly sure that even though the Eight told me this, it is not something that they really want to do and they will come to Ferrara to complain about it. I had proposed to set up large groups of soldiers to this end: that when something similar happened, which is likely to happen sooner and more often than Your Excellency is perhaps aware, jumping on my horse to block the bandits I might have someone who would follow quickly behind me. Because when I give an order to the citizens to follow me, they look at each other, one says that he does not have any weapons, another finds another reason, and even if they come, the event is so drawn out that the bandits have time to make plans and get away safely. If even when such things happen I want to appeal for help to the Commissioner of Sestola, he cannot come fast enough nor clandestinely enough to prevent the bandits from having enough time to do what they want. If I had not been afraid of making a mistake, I would have found a way to catch them and cut all these thugs and their companions to pieces. However, Domenico di Amorotto100 has made me understand via his letters that every time the robbers fall back to Dallo or Pontecchio, their hiding place, I am to notify him and give him a two- or three-day deadline before he will come with three hundred companions all of them from one side, and I will come with every last person I can muster from the other side, prepared to murder the bandits or to have them handed over to their enemies who will murder them. I accepted the offer and responded that I will let him know when the time is right. Still I would not do it without you knowing about it and without an order from Your Excellency. Nor does it seem like a bad thing, when we cannot do anything else, to imitate Christ, who said: I vindicate myself from my enemies with my enemies.101 Not that I take Domenico to be one of your

116

Letters

enemies, if one can trust his words and letters, because he writes to say that for Your Excellency he is willing to commit his property and his own life. I beseech you to answer so that if these robbers return I will not lose the opportunity to catch and kill them and believing that I am doing something good, I not act against your will.102 If it were not that I am indeed still hopeful either one way or another of getting my hands on some of these thugs, I would have already sent someone to get those cavalry and infantrymen that are in Frignano and I would have had their houses burned down and razed. But since one can carry out a vendetta against houses at any time, I think it is better to wait and try everything to catch the bandits, at least some of them. I have been led to believe by various spies that I have placed around that I will probably catch one of them. I will wait for a day or two and then call up the cavalry as Your Excellency has ordered me to do. However, I do not know how much time the cavalry will remain in Frignano. I would not want them recalled to Ferrara while I delayed having them come here, if later I wanted them and they were far away. For this reason it seems good to me that they spend some time in this province enjoying the same status that they have had in Frignano, if they have nothing else to do there before they return to Ferrara. But I commit myself to your decision. Concerning what you command me to do, that I not punish these villages as they in fact deserve for having provided hiding places to the bandits, I will follow your orders henceforth. If our crossbowmen go from one place to another they would not give them a cup of wine or even a handful of hay, whereas to the bandits they bring provisions without even being asked. But your order arrived too late to make any difference in the case of the men of Poggio whom I have already fined two hundred ducats for not wanting to follow the captain of the crossbowmen. But the fine is not officially recorded in the books. I made it large enough to send a message to scare the others and also to prompt them more easily to pay for the crossbowman’s horse. And if I have fined them heavily, it was not for Your Excellency to grant them a pardon. But at least they were compliant and did not protest much having to pay for the horse and compensation to the wounded captain. If Your Excellency permits this unfortunate crossbowman to

117

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

remain uncompensated, all the others will become reluctant to go where they risk danger. And the peasants will become more uncooperative every day. Concerning that priest that Your Excellency ordered me to turn over to the bishop, my letter was not understood clearly. Your Excellency knows that this province of Garfagnana is subject in ecclesiastical matters to two bishops: the districts of Castelnuovo and Trassilico to the bishopric of Lucca and Camporgiano to the bishopric of Luni. And because, as I believe I have written elsewhere, the worst and the most partisan in this country are priests, when I was in Ferrara recently, I tried to have letters of Your Lordship sent to the two bishops. The one from Lucca was in Milan and I have not yet got any response from him. Your Excellency has seen the letter that came from Luni. I am not in a position at the moment to turn over any priest to the bishop from Luni because there is not one from his diocese who has been charged with a crime. But just in case I asked the judge to find one as quickly as possible. That priest named Job, son of Evangelista, is subject to the bishop of Lucca. I lamented about him to Your Excellency because although he had not made peace with the women he offended, he wanted to use the cloak of the priesthood to stay on in our land. With his bishop not around, I do not know where to turn. His representative, I believe, is around here but the way he would judge the case without getting any more evidence is very clear. I already have the example of what was done with the priest named Matheo that I handed over to him. The priest had wounded an official of Your Excellency, committed murder and a thousand other crimes and he was not put in prison. I want to say a bit more about Father Job before Your Excellency makes the necessary decision. I believe that you were led to believe that he harmed a whore and for this reason the situation is one to gloss over lightly. Your Excellency should understand that the violence these women suffered has been the cause of a most grave injury to a citizen here named Acconcio, who is one of the richest, best-connected, and most trusted men in this area. To tell it straightforwardly, he is in love with the young woman and has her discreetly at his beck and call. Because he was about to make public his love, the faction of Evangelista unfortunately did what they did.

118

Letters

The enmity and factionalism in this area revolves around these two houses. Acconcio believes that these women were violated and beaten more out of disrespect for him than for any other reason. … [Probably written in early May, 1523. The rest of the letter is missing.] Letter 77 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto has a plan to catch some bandits.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. From other letters of mine Your Excellency will have understood the reason that held me back from burning and razing the houses of these criminal bandits and yet I would like to do everything as quickly as possible to have them in my hands. Three bandits have been located, so I am told, at their house in Pontecchio. They are waiting there very securely in the hopes of getting from Your Excellency the safe-conduct through the district of Camporgiano that I heard they have asked about. One of your representatives promised me that he would lead me to catch them, although I do not believe a thing that any man in  this province promises. Nevertheless I will wait here for several days  to see. The other criminals, Bernardello and Bertagnetta and Pelegrinetto and some whose names I do not know, are in Villa, on the payroll of that Marquis named Antonio Malaspina. Being housed there, they went together with one of the Marquis’s servants to assault a merchant passing by, which they actually did. When the Marquis learned about it, he sent them straightaway and made them return the goods to the merchant. And with his own hand, so I have heard, he killed his servant for going with the thugs. He subsequently did not harm anyone else other than to threaten them verbally if they carried out similar deplorable acts in his town. Now (but still submitting myself to your opinion) it would seem appropriate if you wrote passionately to this Marquis and begged him to catch these thugs and hand them over to whomever Your Lordship or your commissioner might send to get them. I think that if Your Excellency took this course of action, you could do it with little difficulty. It would result in immense

119

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

benefit for this land and it would instil great fear in the other thugs. It would add not a little to the honour of Your Excellency. The letter in support of Belgrado has come and I immediately sent it to his brother so that he might not lose any time, since I think that he is currently in Lucca. I will be sure that the men from Vallico understand Your Excellency’s good intentions. I do not think that this work has been undertaken in vain because that municipality is a good subject and servant to you. Furthermore, it is more robust with people, good ones too, than any other area in this province. Nothing else new has happened except to commend to Your Excellency the crossbowman who lost his horse and was wounded and the captain who has not yet healed well from the wound he had at Camporgiano. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 3 May 1523. Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 78 to Lord Santuccio Ariosto pleads with the Luccan judge overseeing cases concerning ducal citizens that no more salt be taken from them.

Lord Santuccio. Magnificent One Worthy of Honour like unto a Brother. I believe that Acconcio will have notified Your Magnificence about his mules and salt detained in Lucca. I do not know the reason for this but it happens frequently that our people coming from Pisa with salt are blocked in Lucca. I address the problem in the letter here enclosed to the Magnificent Lords. I beg Your Magnificence to see to it that the customs officials stop doing this. And if the Magnificent Lords are moved in some respect to communicate with signs rather than words, I beg Your Magnificence to be as clear as possible with me so that I can communicate the message to My Most Illustrious Lord and notify him to take some countermeasure that seems to His Excellency more expedient. Another issue: I beg and exhort Your Magnificence to do everything possible to pacify your subjects in Gallicano so that we, who would be near the fire should it spread,

120

Letters

can live more safely with the fire put out. And to Your Magnificence I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 5 May 1523. Of Your Magnificence Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 79 to the Elders of Lucca Again Ariosto protests the confiscation of salt being shipped into the Garfagnana.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I beg Your Lordships to make arrangements with your customs officials concerning the passage of salt from Pisa so that I do not have to file complaints with you every day. In addition to what I wrote concerning some of our drivers whose mules and salt have been detained, once again Acconcio, who is the salt-man here for My Most Illustrious Lord, is lamenting that his mules have also been detained and he does not know why. Since Your Lordships have already granted My Lord, the Duke, rights to have Acconcio transport into Lombardy a certain amount per mile, he has already carried his load six miles. The rest is purchased in Pisa at his request, as Your Lordships can verify to your satisfaction. Now that these terms of transport have been established, it seems that you do not want to abide by what had once been your will. I do not want to believe this, nor can I. It seems more likely that unbeknownst to you the tax collectors are using this new tactic. I ask Your Lordships to warn your men not to hold our salt hostage, especially since there is not such a quantity currently in Lucca that they can stock up on at the same price without going to Pisa. Therefore, all things being equal, I would rather be helpful to Your Lordships than to any other people. Please allow the salt to be transported here without impediment once we have paid the taxes that we owe, so that it can be used in this ducal province as well as the quantity agreed upon for shipping to Lombardy. And if also in some respect Your Lordships are moved to use these tactics, I beseech you to let me know. Thus I may notify My Most Illustrious Lord so that he may do what seems to him

121

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

most expedient for the profit and comfort of his subjects. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 5 May 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 80 to the Elders of Lucca An attempt to resolve the border disputes between the communities of Fabbriche in the Garfagnana and Gello in Luccan territory.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The men of lower Vallico and Fabbriche have come to complain that one of their men, whom I had sent to Lucca on my business, has been detained there on the order of Your Lordships and at the request of the men from Gello. These latter claim that the men from Vallico and Fabbriche must pay them certain fees based on an assessment that commissioner Messer Antonio di Mercatello made for the commissioner of Our Most Illustrious Lord. As for the aforementioned assessment, which was not made on order of the commissioner from His Excellency, My Lord never agreed to it nor did he want to ratify it. And as Your Lordships can see from the copies here enclosed, the men of Vallico and Fabbriche would be going against the will of Our Lord if they agreed to pay such fees. To be clear, if the men have paid the fees at times in the past out of fear, ignorance, or some other reasons, that cannot and should not prejudice the jurisdiction of Their Lord. Wherefore I beg you to release this detainee from Fabbriche. If you believe that there is anything to discuss regarding this case, please write to My Most Illustrious Lord and in a friendly way lay out the details and come to an agreement in which neither side is unjustly victimized. Let us not succumb to retaliatory actions, for that would be completely contrary to the intentions of My Most Illustrious Lord and Your Lordships, since these two governments are united in brotherhood and fare well together. To Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 10 May 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto.

122

Letters

Letter 81 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto vouches for the Attolini brothers.103

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Having read Your Excellency’s order in the official rescript here enclosed,104 I report that Maestri Zan Piero and Baldassari and Bartolomeo Attolini are reputed to be respectable men in Castelnuovo and throughout the entire Garfagnana, as good as any others. They deserve to have credit extended to their books and to have the same concession that others from this area have had. I send you the copy of a permit that was granted by the Most Illustrious Duke Ercole, fond in our memory, and by Your Excellency, to master Pietro de’ Lavelli and then to Pierino, his son, as locksmiths. Following this form Your Excellency can grant the permit to the above-mentioned brothers. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 14 May 1523. Of Your Excellency Most Faithful Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 82 to the Captain of Barga Ariosto complains about how several citizens of Barga have robbed and beaten a local citizen under his jurisdiction and expresses concern about the ongoing incursions into ducal territory.

Magnificent One Worthy of Honour like unto a Brother, Lord Bencio dei Benci, Captain of Barga, etc. Magnificent One Worthy of Honour like unto a Brother. Bertolino Zanotto from Corfino in the ducal province came to complain to me that recently he was assaulted in Barga, in the territory of the Lords of Lucca, by Paulaccio da Barga and Donatello da Sommacolonia and other companions of theirs also from Barga and Sommacolonia. In addition to wounding him seriously, they stole his mare, a pair of oxen, and a coat worth around two ducats and thirty bolognini. And if it had not been for two of the gang, Matheo Mazzoni and Moro, both

123

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

from Barga, they would have ended up killing him. But these two took pity on him and saved his life. Because Your Magnificence will know from the proclamations that have been made from here to there that the desire of My Most Illustrious Lord and that of the Noble Republic of Florence is that the subjects of each other’s territories not suffer damages in one area or the other, I wanted to notify Your Magnificence about it. Not only do I lament that it took place in Barga – since whatever happens outside my jurisdiction is not my concern unless it affects our subjects who cannot go from one place to another without crossing lands belonging to neighbouring governments – but I lament that these men and their companions, all subjects of yours, come almost daily into our territory where they carry out assaults and do other terrible things. Wherefore I beg Your Magnificence to make reparations first in regard to the case of this poor man and then for the many other cases likely to come up on a daily basis. In this way the pact between Our Lords will appear to hold steady in deed as well as in word. And above all I beg Your Magnificence to have returned to Bertolino what he has lost, if that is possible. He tells me that it was a man named Lorenzo Bertacca da Barga in that group who stole the oxen. To Your Magnificence I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 18 May 1523. Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 83 to Alfonso d’Este An update on the charges against the ringleader Moro and a cautionary note about the complexity of a pardon.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I currently have Moro di Pellegrino dal Sillico in prison, against whom the captain has carried out proceedings on the order of Your Excellency. First he is charged with having continued to give refuge to his bandit brothers and to some others, also bandits and criminals, for example to those who together with his brother, Giuglianetto, attacked that priest from Pisa

124

Letters

and stole one hundred ducats from him, which the municipality of Ceserana has been charged to repay. Next he is charged for having gone into Lombardy with bandits and other sorts of rabble to help one of them in their group, for which he has fallen into disgrace and has had all his property confiscated, since the actions were contrary to the proclamations I made for Your Excellency. Next he is charged with having been at Poggio, in Your Lordship’s territory, with some men who murdered one of your subjects. To the first two charges he confessed outright. To this last charge, although he has confessed to being with those who committed the murder (whom he says he met along the road) and to entering the territory of Poggio and also leaving it at the same time as they did, nevertheless he denies that he was a consenting participant in the homicide. However it may be or may work out these men who are under your protection are about to beseech Your Excellency and ask for a pardon and they are preparing acceptable excuses for all of these charges. If Your Excellency in deference to them is about to fulfil their requests, I will not plead the contrary. I only would like to remind you that for every pardon that you are about to make, this poor municipality of Ceserana should not absorb the damages of the one hundred ducats paid to the Pisan priest. For if it seemed right to Your Excellency that these men, having tolerated the bandits and criminals housed in their land, should pay damages to the priest, then so much the more that Moro, who took them into his house (or his wife’s) to the detriment of the municipality, should repay every penalty that that municipality has suffered because of him. Nor can he add any excuse that they were in the house against his will. Because of the finances of their wives, the house is shared between him and his brother, Giuglianetto, consequently he too has been charged with the same penalty for having gone one hundred times and taken up with these bandits a thousand, since for each time and each bandit a penalty has been charged of fifty ducats. And so that Your Excellency is clear about it, I am sending you a copy of the proclamations. Further I want to remind you that, if you grant him a pardon for the charge that remains, please for the sake of this area’s peace see to it that, when he is released from prison, he gives sufficient assurance

125

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

not to come for a year or two in this province. And also if it seems principled to Your Excellency for him to provide assurance that his brother bandits not come into this area unless Your Excellency grants them pardons, in my opinion it would be good for the health and peace of this province. Let this suffice as a proposal of what I think should be done. Your Excellency will be inclined to order things as you see fit. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 28 May 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 84 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports on aggressive and treacherous actions by various bandits in the area. And he laments the overall lawlessness of the province, expressing concern for his own safety.105

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Today some men from Modena, respectable and good citizens, including Francesco Guidone, who says that he is related to Captain Mesino dal Forno, were passing through on their way to the baths.106 Afraid of being attacked when they arrived at Frassanoro, they took on Messer Zan Iacomo Cantello as an escort with a large number of additional people. Messer Zan Iacomo accompanied them to within four miles of San Pellegrino, then, telling them that there was no more danger, he turned around and left them. They had not gone the distance a crossbow could shoot when they were attacked by robbers who are in Messer Zan Iacomo’s pocket, who had gone forward to wait in ambush, and also by some who had accompanied them to that point with Messer Zan Iacomo. His accomplices had come right back so that they could snag Guidone, declaring him to be one of their enemies. They not only took his money; they also tried to ransom him to get more from the members of the group. Some of them gave four, others six ducats, some more, some less, as they tried to pay the ransom, since the robbers said that

126

Letters

they wanted to kill him. Then they managed to take all the rest of the money that his other companions had. They came to Castelnuovo very reluctantly and they accused Messer Zan Iacomo of being a consenting participant in this robbery. They are very upset with him. I do not believe that it is his fault except that he perhaps cannot prevent his followers from doing bad deeds. Nevertheless I wrote him asking that he do everything possible to have the money returned, so much the more since the blame is on him. I do not know how he will answer me. I wanted to notify Your Excellency about this but I do not want to tell you what has to be done, for you know better than I what you are supposed to do. Yet I assure you that no one in this area is safe from murders and robberies, not in the woods, not in the countryside, not even locked up in one’s house. I have the house where I live, even though it is fortified, guarded every night. And I always get two crossbowmen in addition to my servants to sleep here because every day I am threatened that they will come and forcefully take this prisoner that I am holding.107 And to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 28 May 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 85 to the Elders of Lucca Another request for the free shipment of salt through Luccan territory.

Magnificent, etc. Several days have passed since I sent a letter to beg Your Lordships to allow men from this ducal province to pass customs, paying the tolls owed, with the salt that they are shipping from Pisa without being detained and harassed. We must not feel besieged and made to wait without salt, which we need as do the mountain communities subject to My Most Illustrious Lord. Your Lordships answered me that you would take counsel about this and that you would then notify me of your decision. Since I have not heard anything yet and our need could get bigger, I wanted to repeat my request with this letter and ask Your Lordships to allow shipment and to do as good

127

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

neighbours are required to do respecting that My Most Illustrious Lord trusts in your faith and good friendship. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 28 May 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 86 to the Elders of Lucca Yet another request for the free shipment of salt through Luccan territory.

Magnificent, etc. Recently I wrote to Your Lordships as an advocate for that poor fellow, Belgrado, detained and in your hands. I know that you have been written by My Most Illustrious Lord and perhaps at such a request you are not inclined to let him die. If so, I especially will report on your graciousness. There remains the following fact to consider: his relatives tell me that if he would promise never to harm any subject of Your Lordships, they would free him from prison. But because the bond that you are requiring him to post is very large and exceeds his capacity to pay and since he is here and there is no one who can get the money for him, I beseech you to grant two things: first, require of Belgrado a bond of an amount appropriate to his stature that he could pay; second, if he would leave you one of his children as hostage in collateral, please allow him to look for and locate people to post his bail. Nevertheless it would seem to me, if it seems to Your Lordships that he is honest, that, since he must promise never to harm anyone in Your Lordships’ territory, he similarly should be protected from being harmed by your subjects. It would not be right for others to be able to harm him when he is captured and unable to defend himself. I have faith in Your Lordships, who are most just, that you will not do anything unreasonable. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Today I have your letter of response concerning what I have written about transporting salt and I see that you have understood the danger of the approaching plague. I do not and will not fail to take every

128

Letters

positive precaution. Acconcio will come to discuss the problem of the salt with you. Castelnuovo, 29 May 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 87 to Lorenzo Pandolfini, Judge in Barga Ariosto reports on a highway robbery near Barga in Florentine territory and seeks help in tracking down the criminals. He promises to help a widow.

Magnificent, Renowned, and Worthy of Honour, like unto a Brother, Lord and Judge Lorenzo Pandolfini. Magnificent, Renowned, and Worthy of Honour, like unto a Brother. A servant here in the convent of the Franciscans, who came yesterday from Lucca between the hours of nones and vespers, was attacked by three people on the plain at Barga near the Rock of Menante.108 One of the assailants was about eighteen years old, wearing a vest made out of rough linen, black stripes, black cap, and green stockings that covered his calves. One was about twenty-five years old, with a grey vest of rough linen, white baggy pants, and a black cap. The third had a full red beard and wore a leather collar. First the youngest threw a short spear at the victim and wounded his mule deep in the rump. Then they grabbed him and they took a small amount of the taffeta he was carrying to someone here and some clothes not worth much. Even though you are new to the position, Your Magnificence has probably heard about the assaults that take place all around here every day. I am unable to track down the robbers because as soon as they have committed the crime, they take refuge either in the territory of the Florentine Lords or that of the Luccans. Moreover, these criminals move around much of the time in groups that are larger than the number of crossbowmen I keep as my guards. From what I hear, the majority of those who come and commit crimes and then flee home are from Sommacolonia and Barga. It has been but a few days since I wrote your predecessor about an assault that men from those two

129

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

places pulled off at Barca on a poor guy from the ducal province. They took a pair of oxen, a mare, clothes, and money. I never got an answer back to my letter and in it I gave notification of the names of many who were involved in that assault. Now if from so many evils one does not take refuge, I fear that not only will travellers and men of this area who work outside our borders be unsafe but also we officials will be unsafe in our own territory and fortified castles. Recently I had the following proclamation made on behalf of My Most Illustrious Lord: no one from this ducal province should dare to come here as part of an armed group or cause trouble in the land of the Florentine Lords under penalty of the disfavour of His Excellency and the confiscation of all his property. And since My Most Illustrious Lord gave me this order, I assumed that the same proclamation had been made in the territory of the aforementioned Most Noble Lords. Whether done or not, I do not know. I do know that many from these various surrounding lands roam around in armed bands of thugs every day and they commit atrocious acts in our province. I wanted to make this little preamble to Your Magnificence so that when you are of a mind to punish these evil men wherever you find them (in our land or in yours or in the lands of the Lords of Lucca, for according to what they write, they are well disposed to make the roads and the country safe), we can communicate and do the right thing in order not to be totally useless here. Today I received a letter from Your Magnificence with which you commend that poor widow to me. I will not fail to have the captain, who is the official in charge, administer justice to her, with the distance and quibbling overcome. And I too will interpose myself for love of Your Magnificence to be sure that no wrong is done to her. And to you I offer and commend myself. Castelnuovo, 29 May 1523. Ludovico Ariosto General Ducal Commissioner of the Garfagnana. Letter 88 to the Elders of Lucca On the legal status of a dowry in Lucca for a citizen in Ariosto’s jurisdiction.

130

Letters

Magnificent, etc. Messer Ioanni Baptista da Sassuolo, a doctor who lives in Sillano in this ducal province, is the recipient of a certain dowry there in Lucca. I commend him to Your Lordships because usually with dowries people tend to choose sides and also because decent men must be helped by all the lords and good men, especially in cases that are just. The fact that he is not from the Garfagnana, in addition to the aforementioned reasons, means that his case should move speedily along. Once again I recommend him to Your Lordships. Today I had an answer from the oldest son of My Most Illustrious Lord concerning what I had written for the ratification of the treaty that I made with Your Magnificent Commissioner.109 His Lordship writes me that any day now he expects the return of his father from Venice and that upon the arrival of His Excellency the document of ratification will be sent to me. To Your Lordships I commend myself. From Castelnuovo, 3 June 1523. Of Your Lordships Most devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 89 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto promises to try to punish some bandits if and when he catches them. But he warns that at the moment he is losing in his fight against the criminals.

Magnificent, etc. I recently received a letter from Your Lordships commending to me some Augustinian fathers whose property has been troubled and disturbed by a man named Streglio dal Sillico. It seems that in your letter you recall that I promised to send Streglio’s brothers to pay back and cover the damages. I am not sure of what I wrote because I do not keep copies of my letters and my memory is not so good that I can recall everything that I do.110 It could be that I wrote it, but if so, I did it by mistake because there are very few of his brothers who are not bandits or sentenced men. If I could get my hands on them, I would have to punish them for greater faults than this. But they are stronger here than I am. It is true that I have one of them in prison who is the least bad of them all, even though I do not

131

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

think he is any good.111 If the fathers will send someone to this area or set someone up here to speak for them, I will order these brothers not to harass their lands under threat of penalty. If they show up, it will be good for someone to be here who will explain their position. They will not lack for justice, since even force cannot do more than justice. But if Your Lordships would like to help these fathers, you can help them with action, by giving me at some point a way to catch these thugs. Otherwise our justice is based on words and not deeds, not only in the lands of this ducal province but also in those of Your Lordships, since the criminals seem to be on top, not My Most Illustrious Lord or you, Magnificent Lords. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. From Castelnuovo, 4 June 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 90 to the Elders of Lucca Another request for a citizen who has been detained in Luccan territory due to disputes over tolls.

Magnificent, etc. Once again I beg Your Lordships please to allow that poor fellow from Fabbriche, who at the insistence of the men from Gello has been detained there in Lucca for the fifteen lire to which they claim annual rights from the municipality of Fabbriche according to the assessment made by Messer Piero Antonio da Mercatello together with your commissioner on behalf of the Most Illustrious Duke Ercole, whom we remember fondly. Since you have been able to see that My Most Illustrious Lord is not happy with that assessment from a copy of a letter in hand, I wrote to ask you to indicate how I am to deal with this problem. Since I have learned from his son and from the person left in his place that the situation cannot be resolved until His Excellency returns, which is not expected for another twenty days, they charge me to plead with you to release him from prison because they verify that His Excellency upon returning will address the issue with Your Lordships honestly and dutifully.

132

Letters

Moreover, they are certain that His Excellency and Your Lordships will be in agreement. Wherefore repeating myself, I again beg you to have him released from prison. In a friendly way without reprisals may you see and defend your thinking and your people so that you not provide any motives to our people to make them want to vindicate themselves in a similar way. If our subjects did something similar to one of your men, I know that it would displease My Most Illustrious Lord; still one could not guarantee that it might not be done. As your loyal servant, I would like to see such differences as these dealt with swiftly and with love rather than with force and harm. To you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 5 June 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 91 to Nicolò Rucellai, a Florentine captain Ariosto proposes how best to resolve another border dispute with the Florentines near Pietrasanta. After implying that he perhaps was being set up for a violent confrontation, he wonders if he has the legal expertise to deal with the growing problems between aggressive Florentine communities and those of the ducal province. Ariostan irony, of the sort one encounters in the Furioso, colours this letter.

Magnificent, Honourable, like unto a Brother, Lord Nicolò Rucellai, Captain and Commissioner of Pietrasanta, etc. Magnificent, Most Honourable, like unto a Brother. The men of Vagli reported to me that Your Lordship came to the area of the dispute at the agreed-upon time. I was amazed because I was prevented from arriving on time and I was thinking and was certain that you would be prevented too. So Sunday I got on my horse in the middle of the afternoon to go to Vagli that evening, otherwise I would not have been able to be there Monday at the established time. Once I got going, a thunderstorm arose with such heavy rain that was so horrendous its equal had not been seen in many years. It lasted the whole day without ever relenting, raining through the night and into the following

133

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

morning. I was still waiting for the weather to clear up before coming because the road from here to Vagli is such that even with the best weather in the world I would have a hard time unless I walked. And when I wanted to move, some people I met told me that Your Lordship had already been at the site of the dispute and that I would be coming in vain. I am amazed that there was such bad weather around here, while you did not have the same in the direction of Pietrasanta, because if there had been the same weather, it would have been impossible for Your Lordship, as it was for me. I regret that Your Lordship had such discomfort and then came in vain. I regret further to have learned that Your Lordship came with many people, including a good number of men with muskets, because it appears you came to fight rather than to settle the dispute between these subjects justly and fairly. Moreover, it seems strange that Your Lordship wrote and told me to come with just a few people; in fact, had I come, I would not have brought more than ten or fifteen with me. Now that I am back here not having met you, and now that it is not important that I come another time, since in general as far as I can tell the rights to grazing on those lands from now till September belong to the men of Capella, I will not come again but I will notify My Most Illustrious Lord, who perhaps will send me a mandate enabling me to do everything that I will with his ratification and approval. And perhaps he will have someone else selected who seems to him more capable in these issues, since I am not a legal scholar as Your Lordship is. Nor do I have access to any lawyers here in the Garfagnana to take with me, as I believe Your Lordship does in Pietrasanta. But legalities aside, it seems to me that the men of Pietrasanta are contemplating the use of force, since they did not return the animals to these poor fellows of Vagli. Even though I am not a lawyer, it does not seem fair behaviour to me, because while the dispute is under discussion, they should not keep the animals forcefully. I beg Your Lordship for my special pleasure and to my particular comfort that you please have them return the animals to the men of Vagli. Out of love for Your Lordship and respecting every man in Pietrasanta, I will offer vice versa to compensate this act of courtesy with one that is greater whenever I can do them a favour. In writing to My Most Illustrious Lord, I will not fail to see to it that

134

Letters

such a thing, by my means or someone else’s, may bring good results. To Your Lordship I offer and commend myself. Castelnuovo, 9 June 1523. Of Your Lordship Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner, etc. Letter 92 to Alfonso d’Este Accusations against Moro, the financial penalties due because of his actions, and the unwillingness of the captain to follow through as needed. Ariosto’s frustration with the Duke is becoming apparent.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Moro di Pelegrin dal Sillico has been in prison and remains there, as Your Excellency knows. The main reason I put him there was to satisfy these poor men of Ceserana for the money they have been fined for allowing bandits in their territory. It seemed to me that if the men of that municipality incurred a penalty for not having prevented the bandits from staying in their land, all the more should this fellow Moro be punished, since he always had bandits in his house for food and drink, and he went with them and stayed in their company. According to the proclamation which I sent to Messer Obizo, there should be a penalty on each of these counts. Since Moro has been put away, no one from Ceserana has come around to complain about him in public. This is because of the threats that Giuglianetto and Moro’s other brothers have made against them, as well as those made by other bandits and other protectors that Moro has around here living in Ceserana without any fear of Your Lordship. Up to now no one from that municipality has been bold enough to go to the captain, to whom one reports each case, with a rescript112 that they have from Your Excellency, which spells out that Moro and his brother are to be charged actually and personally for having taken in bandits and criminals and that they should pay including interest for the damage that the people from Ceserana have endured. It is true that often citizens have come individually or in groups of two

135

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

to plead with me secretly to help them and to have me understand the fear that keeps them from lodging the necessary complaints. This land has descended into such a state of tyranny and fear of these thugs, especially due to Moro’s brother, Giuglianetto, who beats people up, wounding and robbing them, constraining and threatening them so much that they will be forced to abandon their homes and emigrate to some other part of the world. Moved by a sense of pity for them and by the debt I owe justice, I have frequently begged the captain here to sentence Moro for having taken in the bandits to make him pay back the municipality for what it owed because of Moro and his brother. The captain has never wanted to do it and has said to me that Moro cannot be sentenced for having hosted bandits since earlier witnesses testified he was not guilty of taking them in. Rather, sharing the house with his brother, he could not prevent him from doing for his part whatever he wanted and that it was his brother Giuglianetto and not Moro himself who hosted the bandits. I responded to the captain that if he could not sentence him on this count why not sentence him for having eaten and drunk with them, talked, spoken, and gone into Lombardy and elsewhere with them, because according to my proclamation he should be charged for each one of these counts. He has answered me that he does not want to do it and that he sentenced him as was appropriate. Recently under written threat of penalty I had the men of Ceserana show me their official request to you and the rescript of Your Excellency. In it the captain is ordered, in his capacity as acting commissioner, to make Moro and his brother Giuglianetto, who have always given refuge to bandits in their house, repay the municipality of Ceserana for the damage it has incurred because of them. I had this document notarized and delivered to the captain and in the name of the municipality (of which it is helpful that I serve as your legal proxy) I petitioned that he carry out what the order dictates. Despite this, the captain was not willing to budge an inch. He answered that if the people of Ceserana want justice, they should be the ones to open up and ask for it. This led me to suspect that the captain is under the influence of someone else and that he is keeping another option open so that Moro might go unpunished and the people of Ceserana get stuck with their penalty. And if the captain has correctly sentenced Moro by confiscating his property and having him fall into your disfavour for

136

Letters

going into Lombardy to help one of the groups of robbers against the proclamation that I made in Your Excellency’s name, perhaps he has convinced himself (wanting to help) that you will soon grant Moro remission and a pardon, which would not satisfy the damage that the men of Ceserana have incurred in this case. I wanted to notify you of the whole situation lest you think, however things may work out, that justice, fairness, and mercy, where appropriate, have no place in my heart. In gratitude I commend myself as always. Castelnuovo, 15 June 1523. Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 93 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports on a rash of livestock raids in the Garfagnana and asks the Duke to help him repond to them. He is concerned that excessive acts of retaliation involving his citizens may lead to even greater political instability, which neighbouring governments might take advantage of.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. With another letter113 I notified Your Excellency of the theft of a huge quantity of livestock, large and small, carried out for Messer Zan Iacomo Cantello by some soldiers who are stationed at Frassinoro. I wrote him immediately as did members of this community but I have not yet had any answer. Then the men whose animals were stolen went to get them back, but in vain, as the bearer of this letter will report to you in person. These men immediately retaliated by taking ten mules from some men in Castelnuovo ne’ Monti and they will continue taking whatever goods pass through here that belong to Lombards. I warned them against retaliating without first having recourse to Your Excellency, who will perhaps write to Messer Zan Iacomo and Domenico di Amorotto advising them to return the beasts or telling them what they should do. I have not been able to persuade them to return the mules even though I urged them to hand them over to me. Tomorrow the whole district is called to council to plan what on earth to do when they cannot get their property back and must get the equivalent value in another way. I fear that there will

137

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

be some great disagreement between Lombards and Tuscans. I am afraid that if the men from the Garfagnana undertake some activity and then do not sustain it (after all, they are not very dependable by nature and do not cooperate among themselves), this will be a pretext for the Lombards to come through here and reduce the province to the same conditions as Frignano. While the crime is fresh, I will not fail to remedy things. But without the help and advice of Your Lordship I do not have the courage to do it. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 20 June 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 94 to the Elders of Lucca A more general letter to the Luccans on the same issues addressed in letter 93. Not even the Pope is powerful enough to control the bandits in the region.

Magnificent, etc. Your Lordships will have learned from people about what has happened to the detriment of many poor men of Garfagnana in the San Pellegrino Alps, your territory in the mountains of Modena and Reggio. I immediately notified My Most Illustrious Lord about it and I do not know what he will do. It seemed proper also to write to Your Lordships, since you are closer and for this reason perhaps more likely to respond quickly with some remedy. Perhaps you will come up with some plan that I have not imagined because I am far from My Lord and I can only take advantage of his help later. Although it is not for me to give you advice, nevertheless I believe that it would not be out of place to register your grievance about it with the Pope,114 with the Florentine Lords, and also with My Duke, with everyone together planning against such evils that are multiplying every day. Criminals and bad men have control over all these mountains rather than the Pope, the Florentines, My Lord, and Your Lordships. In good gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 20 June 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto.

138

Letters

Letter 95 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto lists the ongoing problems with bandits in the area of the Garfagnana bordering Luccan territory.

My Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour. Today I had official ratification from My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord concerning what Your Lordships’ Magnificent Commissioner and I agreed upon about the acts of violence, assaults, murders, and other crimes carried out in the Garfagnana. Here I send it to you and I beg and beseech you to put it into effect, since the order is legitimate. With such a start one can hope things will improve. Recently I believe that I notified Your Lordships that one of our citizens named Bartolino da Corfino was robbed at Barca in your territory. He lost a pair of oxen, a mare, the clothes he was wearing, and a large sum of money in keeping with his rank. The robbers were from Barga and Sommacolonia and also from the territories of Your Lordships, according to what he who suffered the loss reports to me. Then over a period of four to six days in our territory between Cascio and Castelnuovo some men from Minucciano and other places subject to Your Lordships were assaulted. In fact, the acting representative from Minucciano has written to me that the criminal was one of our citizens from Camporgiano, a bandit who did not keep any of the goods. This morning one of our citizens from Reggio came to file a lawsuit against those from Barca who attacked him. They took some bags of grain that he was carrying and other items, and they wounded him, as I saw. I believe that I will hear that this evening there was another crime, tomorrow another, the next day yet another, and the next day if we do not take some action. I beg Your Lordships to help me put things in order. Send your constable to stay in Gallicano so that with him on one side and my crossbowmen on the other we will see if we can catch them or scare them enough that they abandon the undertaking. My Most Illustrious Lord has written to the Florentine Lords and the Captain of Barga has notified me that His Lords intend to help us in every way and that he has very strict orders to do so too. But I have not yet seen any action. After what I have written, if Your Lordships still deign to unite with the

139

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Florentine Lords, to urge, instigate, and spur them on, I think that it will only help. I have documented what is needed. Your Lordships will do what you think best and whatever you do, one way or another, I will be satisfied. Above all I beseech you not to let crimes committed by these people from Barca (people you might easily welcome into your house) go unpunished. This man who claims to have been robbed by them is willing to go with them before a judge. If by these means they happen to end up in my hands by coming to Castelnuovo, I will fulfil my duty. To Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 5 July 1523. With this letter I enclose the document of ratification by My Most Illustrious Lord. I am now awaiting Your Lordships’ similar genuine document of ratification. Of Your Lords Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 96 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto supports one of the citizens under his jurisdiction who has been treated unfairly.115

My Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour. The bearer of this letter is Thomeo di Andrea from Bargecchia, who has been treated very unfairly by one of your subjects, and he did not receive a fair hearing from your representative in Gallicano, as he will explain to Your Lordships. I will be brief because he will relate his situation in person and with documents better than I can in a letter. I urge Your Lordships to pursue justice, although I do not believe there is any here, and I also commend this man to you. In gratitude I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 7 July 1523. Of Your Lords Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 97 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reviews the situation on the legal agreements with Lucca and Florence and expresses his frustration that the laws have no teeth. The

140

Letters

Duke will not allow him to take the action he deems suitable, while at the same time he chastises his loyal commissioner for not being forceful enough. Ariosto protests that he has responsibility without appropriate authority. He concludes with a brief note that a fleet of French ships is reported to be just off the Tuscan coast.116

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I received Your Excellency’s ratification of what the commissioner for the Lords of Lucca and I drew up and immediately sent it on to the Lordships with a cover letter in which I lament and complain about the assaults that are carried out along the borders in lands that fall between their jurisdiction and ours, sometimes by their subjects and sometimes by ours. In fact, few people coming back from working in Rome or Siena pass by without being robbed and plundered. I asked them to send their constable to stay for a while in Gallicano, about four miles from here, so that together with my crossbowmen we can either catch these robbers or chase them away. I wrote this same thing to the Captain of Barga, who answered me saying that he had written to His Lords and he has very strict orders from them. Yet neither from here nor there do I see any good thing emerging. I will not stop short of insisting, urging, and petitioning. As far as the dispute goes between the men of Vagli and Pietrasanta, the letter that Your Excellency wrote to Florence and Rome cannot but help. These men should have come to Ferrara with their documents and contracts in order to show you that they have endured force, violence, and injustice at the hands of that captain from Pietrasanta.117 His actions reveal that he is a man of poor judgment. Not only did he not want to return the animals that were stolen in our territory but he had some of them slaughtered at the butcher’s and the rest he had auctioned off for twenty-four ducats. These men from Vagli never agreed to find the money to pay a messenger who came from Your Excellency. And they remain stubbornly against doing so now. At our next meeting they would like me to grant them the freedom to retaliate against the men and animals that end up on our side of the border. I have been able to hold them in check, letting them know that they will be

141

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

doing something that will displease Your Excellency. The captain does not stop threatening me that if our citizens are bold enough to steal so much as a goat from them, he will go and burn Vagli down. These men from Vagli realize that by themselves they are not powerful enough to resist the men from Pietrasanta and they would like me to save them if a scuffle breaks out. Since I know the nature of people from the Garfagnana, who with all the orders in the world could not be made to do anything similar – I have already tried to do that more than once – opting for less harm and shame, I choose to comfort anyone whose head has been smashed and turn to Your Excellency for advice. One could be even more bold against the Luccans concerning the dispute that they have with our men from Vallico, because our subjects, especially the ones from Vallico, apparently are not afraid of the men from Gello, and they hardly respect even the authorities from Lucca themselves. I have been careful not to let them do anything because the letters that come to me every day from Your Excellency always curtail rash acts of boldness. I never hear anything other than that I should move carefully without stirring up hornets so as to ensure that Your Excellency not only has the respect of the lords of the city, but also of the peasants in Reggio’s mountains. Thus recently when I notified you that the followers of Zan Iacomo Cantello and Domenico d’Amorotto stole a large number of sheep and the men here from Pieve detained a certain number of mules belonging to a man from Castelnuovo ne’ Monti, immediately you wrote back to tell me to have the mules returned without any delay so as not to stir up the hornets. It seemed that if I did not get them back immediately, I would have the Pope’s army bivouacking here. But I had already taken care of it. I had the men guarantee to return the animals or to repay the value of them as per every requisition I demanded. These letters and others like them curtail my boldness and they instil in me deference and such qualities that make others consider me too timid, which Your Excellency reprimands me for in your letter. On the one hand, to have no real power and clout in this position and lead subjects (like these other men not directly involved in this case) who are not going to follow any of my orders that charge them to take up

142

Letters

arms, and on the other hand, however, to be warned and made fearful by Your Excellency’s letters and always to be told to be supportive and to proceed with prudence and caution – this situation constrains me to change from a lion to a rabbit. These men from Vallico, when the Lords of Lucca received Your Excellency’s letter in their behalf, had already sent their emissaries to you on this case. But it is not a bad thing for them to have come to you, since it is better that they let you know what they need. Since I have written you about it already, I will not repeat that these men whose beasts have been stolen do not mean well. They have told me boldly that if they do not get them back through Your Excellency’s agency, they will take action not to endure the loss and they will take it out on people from Lombardy, who may actually risk losing not only their goods but their lives. I have written about this more than once to Cantello and Domenico. Their responses indicate that they do not hold you to blame and that they are sorry. But it does not appear that the words and deeds match. People keep saying that the French fleet is visible at sea – some say eighty, some one hundred ships – but I do not have any reliable witnesses. One thing is for sure: all the lands along the coast are in danger. To Your Excellency I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 7 July 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 98 to Alfonso d’Este Another report on the ongoing border disputes with the Luccans and Florentines, with a suggestion that a ducal soldier sent to bring order to Frignano come to Castelnuovo too.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I am sending to Your Excellency these two letters, one from the Florentine Lords, the other from the Lords of Lucca. I believe that these are the responses to Your Excellency’s letters on the border disputes and the acts of retaliation.

143

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

The men from Pietrasanta sold the animals for twenty-four ducats and yet when our citizens guaranteed to pay for them if they lost their case, they returned the animals. The commissioner is petitioning me again to set up on site to work out the border dispute. I do not want to be so bold, without an order from Your Excellency, as to set up borders to your detriment, because I am sure that between his knowing better how to argue his case (since he is a lawyer surrounded by lawyers and I do not have any here) and his being more forceful and arrogant than I am, he will want to set up the boundary to his liking or not at all. I have continued to excuse myself on the grounds that I do not have orders from Your Excellency and without your command I do not intend to rule on that site. I have learned that Messer Giovanni Ziliolo is in Frignano to straighten out that town. It dawns on me that he could also work on this one while he is there. That would mean getting his hands on the men from Costa, Sillico, and a good number from Sommacolonia, who came to Frignano to help out Virgilio, or so I hear. The bearers of this letter, I believe, are probably men sent by the district of Camporgiano in order to file a complaint about a charge against them. I made it according to the acts and proceedings and on the advice of the captain here and in keeping with Your Excellency’s orders, to whom I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 11 July 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 99 to Alfonso d’Este Further reports on disagreements over the borders. Ariosto restates in more detail the awkward confrontation he nearly had with the Florentine authorities recounted in letter 91 and explains the strategic importance of this stretch of border.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. The many border disputes that we have with the Florentines on one side and the Luccans on the

144

Letters

other are giving me a huge amount of work. All day long each side retaliates against the other, going after first men, then animals. The men here are upset and they would like to strike back at both groups. Obeying Your Excellency, I am keeping them from becoming violent with my warnings and threats. But our deference is making our adversaries more brash and arrogant by the hour. What we do out of decency and our desire for living in peace, they judge to be signs of cowardice. Every day they become more forward and treat your subjects as if they were slaves. Recently I lamented that the Lords of Lucca had detained a man from Fabbriche for fifteen lire that they want the citizens from there to pay per year as tribute to Gello. They propose using as a base for the boundary what Pier Anton Mercatello had already established between the territory of Your Excellency and theirs. I wrote to Your Excellency and sent you some copies, but at the time you were not in Ferrara. Lord Ercole answered to instruct me that at your return you would tell me what I have to do and so now I am awaiting your response. In the meantime I have asked the Lords of Lucca to release from prison that man from Fabbriche until you return and advise me of your opinion on the matter. They agreed to let him go with the promise that they would return forcefully at the beginning of the month. It seems appropriate to use this letter to remind you of the situation so that you will not think that it is unimportant. But important as this situation is, it is not as urgent as a dispute among the men of Capella, Pietrasanta, and our people in upper Vagli. The municipality of Capella took reprisals against a large quantity of big livestock grazing in an area on the border between their land and ours. According to a document that the men of Vagli showed me and according to the evidence I ordered them to let me see on the site, I am sure that the livestock was taken from land in our jurisdiction and not theirs. I wrote the captain at Pietrasanta about it and I lamented that he did not respect what seems to have been established for a long time in the document. He wrote back and asked me to come to the site on a specific day to consider the arguments on both sides and that for the meantime he wanted to detain the animals so that, if we agreed that our men had trespassed, they would be punished. And then he wrote me to come with only a few

145

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

people and that he would do likewise to avoid anything outrageous that might stir things up. I found myself unwillingly in this argument. I was aware that the Captain of Pietrasanta is a lawyer and that he was going to be accompanied by lawyers and notaries (which amount to the same thing there). But I did not have anyone to take with me, since the Captain of Justice did not want to come because the road is the most difficult fifteen-mile stretch in this land, so much so that it is impossible to cover it on horse and he, being a hefty man, cannot and did not want to travel by foot. Nor are there any other lawyers in all the Garfagnana except Messer Achille, who is gravely ill.118 Nevertheless I decided to go and so one Sunday in the middle of the afternoon I set out to spend the night at Vagli with the intention of getting to the place at the summit of Petrapania on the appointed day, the following Monday. Whether it was merely nature or the will of God, at that time the worst weather we had seen around here for ten years arose. In fact, on that day lightning killed men and animals and the rain was the heaviest and longest we had ever had around here. It lasted without a break that whole day and throughout much of the night. The next day when the weather began to clear up and I decided to move on, a messenger from the Captain of Pietrasanta came to report that he had been at the site, which he could do easily since his town is located very close to it. I learned also that there was no bad weather from their direction. Nor even if the weather had been good would I have gone there because I heard that, contrary to our agreement, he had gone there with perhaps two hundred armed men. And he had one hundred men with muskets nearby. It was clear that he went there for a fight or to get what he wanted by force rather than to come to an agreement on equitable terms. I immediately sent a messenger from Vagli with the enclosed letter and as Your Excellency can see I asked him to return those animals. He did not deign to answer; on the contrary, to show his pride, he returned the letter unopened, saying to the messenger that he did not intend to return the animals and that he was sorry he had recently returned even some of them as I had asked. I do not know how to remedy this situation. Had I gone or were I to go again to the disputed place, I know that that this Florentine would like to win both with law and even more so with

146

Letters

force. I think that my intervention on site would more readily be a cause for bias against Your Excellency’s government than for its benefit. This area that the men from Pietrasanta would like to claim is not worth losing so easily because it borders the territory of the Lady Marquise of Massa.119 Through this land we could transport salt and other goods from that coastal area. If the Florentines seized it, they could impose a tax on us to our serious detriment. The man bearing this letter will add in person what I leave out of my written text, because I believe that he will be very informed on the matter. In my opinion it will be necessary to go to a meeting only with the people able to judge such disputes if we have to conduct business about the border. The hatred between Vagli on our side and the men of Capella and Pietrasanta on the other could lead to a bad skirmish. If Your Excellency wants to send me, I will not fare well without a lawyer or another person well educated in the law. It would be better perhaps if the case were heard in Lucca or Sarzana so that its outcome depends not on the factions around here but on justice. The case should be based on legal testimonies concerning where the place is that the documents call Aquaruolo and where exactly the fields of Arni are. Your Excellency will do as you think best. In gratitude to whom I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 13 July 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 100 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto coordinates the communication about the border dispute between the communities of Fabbriche and Gello.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I recently received a letter that Your Lordships had sent to My Most Illustrious Lord. I believe it was in response to what His Excellency had written on the dispute between the men of Fabbriche and Gello. I did not send that letter until this past Sunday because before then I did not have a messenger. His Excellency responds with the letter that I copy here and he reports that he has not yet had an answer from Your

147

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Lordships. I have written my cover letter so that Your Lordships not be shocked by what he says. I continue to commend myself to you. Castelnuovo, 13 July 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 101 to Alfonso d’Este More reporting on border disputes, concerns over the plague, and tracking down bandits. He reports that the Luccans are helping out.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara, etc. By courier. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I had delivered to Your Excellency a letter from the Florentine Lords and one from the Lords of Lucca by a man sent by the district of Camporgiano. I believe that the bearer of this letter will be someone sent by the men from upper Vagli, with whom, as I have written in other letters to Your Excellency, the men from Pietrasanta have been very violent. Your Excellency will have their documents reviewed. Also please get information from Magnificent Messer Augustino da Villa,120 who I gather was already at the site and can do a very good job of clarifying the situation. Then you will be in a position to take care of things as you see fit. I then had a letter from Your Excellency on the 10th of this month and at the same time a directive from the Luccan Lords. That which pertains to the Luccans, I sent to Lucca by means of the same men from Vallico who were the letter carriers. Now I am waiting for a response. I also sent the other letter that I received recently and I believe that the one I forwarded via the man from Camporgiano is the response to it. If the Lords of Lucca do what they should do, I will be happy. Even if they do not, it is not a problem for me. I understand that Your Excellency’s intention is for me to match them as they match us, that is, if they retaliate against our goods and men, I will do likewise against theirs. Concerning the news from Pisa, the truth is difficult to determine since the plague has struck there. I do not let any

148

Letters

person coming from there enter here nor do I let any of our citizens go in that direction. We have been in grave danger from the plague because the farmers from around here, once Easter comes, have the habit of going in sizeable numbers down the road toward Rome and along the Maremma in order to make money. Once the grain has been cut, they come back infected with the disease. It was very difficult for me to make arrangements to keep them from going back to their homes. I had them quarantined here and there in the woods with their needs provided for. Nevertheless I did not succeed in foreseeing everything so as to prevent many of them from going to see their wives at home on the sly. In one of the villages of the Terre Nuove called Roggio, the plague spread so quickly that nine died from it.121 Some men from the Maremma have prepared to come so that we have no doubt that things will get worse. Be things as they may, I wanted to give Your Excellency some notice of them. Concerning what Your Excellency commands me about notifying you of the number of people I would need in order to straighten out this area, I have already given notification to Messer Zoanne Ziliolo and he perhaps sent Your Excellency my letter.122 Nevertheless I will write it to you here again. There is no rebel area here that needs to be burned or pillaged. Nor is there any partisan leader with two or three hundred men necessitating that you send an army. Here there are about six men from Costa, with the sons of Pellegrino dal Sillico about the same in number. There are some scoundrels following along from Barga and Sommacolonia, who without the help of the Lombards would not amount to much. When they have had the Lombards with them, that is the folks from Pacchioni and Temporia, there were not one hundred total but more like thirty or forty.123 I know that as soon as people find out that Messer Zoanne is about to come by or send people from here, they will break camp and will not come back as long as he is around. But as soon as he leaves they will be back here again. There is no way to punish them other than to catch their fathers, brothers, and relatives and not release them until they give a guarantee that the criminals will not come back into the area. If they do not have fathers, then ransack their houses and burn them, raze them to the ground, cut down their vines

149

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

and trees, and destroy all their private property so that it could never be bought or sold again, nor could the Treasury derive any revenue from it. It would perhaps be good not to expect fathers and mothers in this campaign to mete out punishments, since they have always provided them refuge despite the many decrees of Your Excellency. Next it would be good to knock down all the church bell towers or rather unlock them all so that they could not be used as hiding places for the criminals. And the same for the fortified houses that Your Excellency does not want to guard or at least some of them, for example, the one from Dallo, where the men from Costa lord over the place. It would take one hundred infantrymen to do all these things or perhaps fifty. Horses are not very useful here. Those few that we already have, with the extra soldiers, would be enough. Yesterday I sent the head of the light cavalry who is here, Antonio da Cento, to speak to Messer Zoanne Ziliolo to see if we could have up to twenty soldiers who might come secretly at night to see if they could catch the bandits in Ceserana. I do not know what will come of it but I am more afraid that nothing much will happen than I am hopeful of some resolution. Because when they hear all the commotion in Frignano, they will be ready to flee. I was told that they wanted to go and find Messer Zoanne, whom I advised accordingly. They went out and then turned around. The men from Costa, I hear, have gone over into Lombardy to attack what is left of Domenico di Amorotto’s band.124 I do not know if Your Excellency has any way to have them captured there; if you could, it would be good for the health of this area. If ten thugs around here could be strung up, the place would be made healthy. Today the constable from Lucca came to Gallicano following the orders of his Lords to do what I ask him to do. He happened to arrive when the captain of our crossbowmen was not here. He has written and rewritten me and we agree that whenever I request it, he will come back. I would have made him wait, but by the time the bad guys learn of his coming, they have probably cleared out. I sent him a note with the names of these bandits. His letters show that he comes to us with good intentions and so do the letters about all this that the Lords of Lucca have written. There is nothing else to report. To Your Excellency I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 15 July 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto.

150

Letters

Letter 102 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto explains why he sent a letter on the case of an Estense citizen’s financial problems first to Lucca rather than to Ferrara.

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara, etc. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Pier Morello125 delivered a letter from Your Excellency to me in which you reprimand me for having sent the case that he has with Pisano126 to officials in Lucca before sending it first to Ferrara. But so that you might understand my line of thinking, Your Excellency should know that this case was presented to the commissioner and the four overseeing taxes for importing and exporting and for this reason it came under my purview. I recently sought advice about it from Messer Raphaele of Carrara, who was captain at Camporgiano at the time, because Pisano does not trust the captain here in Castelnuovo. Having studied the documents, Messer Raphaele drafted his sentence in which he absolved Pisano from paying the toll for that lumber which the case is about and he absolved Pier Morello from paying any legal expenses for the case. Not confident that this sentence was legal for certain steps in the process that I noticed, I sent a copy of it to Your Excellency, asking you to show it to your legal counsel. I said that I wanted next to send you the entire proceedings. But Your Excellency answered that you did not want counsel to become involved in this case. You instructed me to bring it to a close according to my judgment and that of the four overseers. Several days thereafter when I was in Ferrara and talked about the situation with the Magnificent Messer Matheo Casella, His Magnificence told me not to consult with others but to settle it in accordance with the legal opinion of the four overseers. And so when I returned here, I interrupted the case and convened the men who are currently serving as the four. When I had heard their opinion, I asked the men who had held the position before them, and then the four before them, what they thought. I ended up asking as many men as had ever held the job of overseer of taxes for importing and exporting, all of whom agreed

151

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

with the position that Pisano should be absolved without any argument. They based their opinion in part on the rules concerning this tax and in part on what the typical procedure is, namely never to pay it. But more importantly, they say that the intent of the regulations was not for people to pay a fee on top of the tax. And there are some few still living who actually made those regulations. They added yet further that if these rules were not crystal clear, everyone across the whole area should consult with each other and agree one by one that people should not have to pay the fee. When the lumberjacks undertook these jobs, the poor men were making a living by labouring to transport quantities worth around one thousand ducats a year. Since the beginning of this dispute, that commerce has stopped and consequently has harmed the country seriously. Having seen that all the men of this land shared the opinion that Pisano should be absolved, I proposed to them that they also judge whether or not Piero ought to be charged legal expenses and a penalty incurred according to the rules when the tax collector demands a tax he does not have to have. I also asked their opinion on whether or not Piero was justified in bringing the lawsuit. I could not get some of them to pass judgment on this subject, and they added that this was a topic for lawyers and not them, since they are simple common folk. Since I desired to make a decision on this case that would be justifiable and that would not be retried, I found it expedient to send the proceedings to Lucca to clarify this specific point. Since the town is so close, I hoped to send the proceedings one day and have the settlement on the next. But things turned out differently because the lawyer I sent it to was ill and he never got to see it. But now that I understand the desire of Your Excellency, I will request everything to be returned so that I can send it immediately to Ferrara. I believe that Pier Morello has come to complain about me as being someone unable to make legal decisions in a timely way because I never answered him as he perhaps hoped. As soon as I arrived here, he offered me half of whatever he could get out of Pisano or even more as long as I ruled in his favour so that he would win the case. He first made the offer through Ser Tito, who was my clerk at the time, and then he came to me in person. If I failed by sending the proceedings to Lucca,

152

Letters

I am sorry. But I did not do anything that my predecessors had not done, nor does it seem strange, since Lucca is twenty miles away and Ferrara one hundred. I do not think that Lucca is a city that harbours enmity toward Your Excellency nor is it a city with factions that are more friendly or more closely tied by kinship to Ferrara. I did not say to one group or another to whom or where I had sent the documents. Nor do I know how Piero learned I had done so. I doubt that he is afraid of justice anywhere or that he lodged this complaint because he is more afraid for his chances in Lucca than elsewhere; rather, it is because every delay and postponement is to his advantage. If Pisano has complained about the process being drawn out, he is right, because he has wasted so much time here that he would be sorry even if he had been in heaven. But it is not my fault. These men are unwilling to pass judgment and they carefully are avoiding a decision before they step out of office so that they will leave this responsibility to their successors. But if the case were brought before each individual of the four in office at the time, that is Soardino, Maestro Gianpietro Atolino, Simon di Lorenzo, and Valdrigo, or to someone else in the position of judge up until the case’s conclusion, I believe that they would deliver a settlement and would not look to passing the responsibility on to the successor. Everyone agrees that Piero is wrong, but no one wants to harm him. If Your Excellency is of the opinion that I should forward the case and wait for a verdict from Ferrara or if you hold that I should give the sentence following the advice of these men according to Your Excellency’s order without other consultation, let me know and I will settle it immediately. In gratitude I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 16 July 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 103 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports on various thwarted plans to try to catch bandits with additional soldiers from Frignano. The citizens of Camporgiano refuse to do their part in the fight against lawlessness and their officials claim to be afraid to take action against the criminals. Ariosto is blunt in his assessment of the dire situation.

153

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

My Most Illustrious Lord. I sent the captain of the crossbowmen from here to Messer Zoanne Ziliolo so that he might borrow up to twenty soldiers that I wanted to have come at night to try to catch the brothers of Moro dal Sillico who are still in Ceserana, that is, the brothers who assaulted the Pisan priest.127 He came back emptyhanded, reporting to me that Messer Zoanne, on your orders, has no authority to send anyone here. I beg Your Excellency to see to this as you deem best, as I have written in another letter.128 The treasurer of Camporgiano is here, but he has only brought part of the money owed for the crossbowmen. He says that the citizens from the Terre Nuove, that is Dallo, Pontecchio, and Castelletto, and the other areas in the district to the north, refuse to contribute to support the soldiers and they add that in any case they do not benefit from the soldiers’ presence, since they are attacked and preyed upon by the Lombards and others. No one comes to their aid. They are in arrears for this payment and the two previous ones as well. I immediately had orders written up claiming that if they did not pay, etc. But we do not have a messenger who wants to go to that area. I will see if I can find a crossbowman to send there. A year has passed since written orders were sent to the fathers and brothers of those robbers in Pontecchio, which I sent to the officials in Camporgiano so that they might be forwarded from there by one of their messengers, but they never found any messenger who wanted to go there. And in this period more than one of the robbers has come to Camporgiano for various meetings and the captain’s notary who had these orders in hand did not have the courage even to mention it. This is because, he says, he does not want to be murdered, since he is from around there. Next point: two bandits who are robbers, two isolated fellows who are not taken seriously, with no followers, are still in Camporgiano. Not only do the local officials not put themselves out to try to catch them, but they have not even written me to tell me about it. Learning of the situation in a different way, I sent the crossbowmen to the town unannounced. They found one of these wretches, called Frate, playing cards with someone from Camporgiano with the whole town around. As soon as the crossbowmen discovered who he was, the townspeople hid him and helped him escape into a field of hemp. Everyone saw

154

Letters

him and knew who he was but no one wanted to assist the crossbowmen. Among those acting in this way was Ser Constantino da Castelnuovo, the notary here, who excused himself on the grounds that he did not want to be murdered. And then the man in charge of horses there on that very day had to tangle with this thug, who in the last twenty days has robbed about six people more than once. His targets are poor travellers coming from the Maremma and he has stolen from them up to fifteen ducats. I regret that it only seems I can report bad news. I do it nonetheless so that all the blame, if things do not work out, does not fall on my head. To Your Excellency humbly I commend myself. 17 July 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. If I were to add that in the town of Camporgiano or in the general district acts of wickedness have been carried out of all sorts, for which the perpetrators have never been brought to trial, I would be reporting bad things but I would be speaking the truth. Letter 104 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs Ariosto argues that a local citizen who has been summoned to Florence has done nothing wrong.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence. In Florence. Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. Baccio da la Masa, the bearer of this letter, came to tell me that he was called by Your Lordships to Florence. Not knowing why he was being summoned, he went to the Magnificent Judge of Barga, who told him that it probably had to do with the legal problems that the Commissioner of Castelnuovo initiated against the men of Barga and Sommacolonia. He begged me to testify to the truth on his behalf. To Your Lordships, therefore, because it was never my intention to hide or feign anything, let me state that I never heard any claims made by or about this man, Baccio. On the contrary, on the day of St Peter’s just passed, he came to see me to settle a dispute and disagreement that had arisen between

155

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Giuliano Grigò and some subjects of My Most Illustrious Lord. Our citizens complained that Giuliano had been with a large group in Massa, which is within the ducal territory, and he had acted violently against them. Since that day things have been very quiet around here, which I attribute to the work of Baccio, thus I testify on his behalf to Your Lordships, to whom I commend myself. From Castelnuovo, 20 July 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Humble Ludovico Ariosto Of the Ducal Province in the Garfagnana Commissioner Letter 105 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs In an attempt to quell violence on the border between Barga and the Garfagnana, Ariosto requests a reciprocal decree that would ban the public display of weapons.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence. In Florence. Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. I have often lamented to the captains at Barga about the robberies, assaults, and other acts of violence that some evil men from Barga and Sommacolonia continue to carry out in this ducal province of Garfagnana. I have not yet seen any evidence that these thugs are pulling back from their evil deeds, which they continue to carry out in large number around here. Armed and dangerous, sometimes with bandits from our side, sometimes on their own, assaulting people, extorting money from them, moving from one village to another, living wilfully and as they please. On behalf of My Most Illustrious Lord some time ago I proclaimed a public proclamation prohibiting any of our citizens from carrying weapons in public and in large groups within the borders of Your Lordships’ territory for any reason whatsoever. But I do not believe that officials working for Your Lordships have reciprocated with an analogous prohibition because I do not hear anything other than that one person or another has been attacked by people from Barga or Sommacolonia. It would take too long to report these crimes one

156

Letters

by one, besides I have reported them to the Captain at Barga more than once as they occurred. Again I need to report to Your Lordships that Togno di Nanni del Calzolaro from Sommacolonia and Francesco also called Francio, son of Biagio di Gigrò, Stephano di Barzante di Stephano, with five other companions went to an area of this province called Ceserana and wreaked havoc. They broke and shattered money boxes; they constrained the local herdsman; they pillaged a large amount of cheese that belonged to Nardino from Ceserana. I thought that I should bring the case to your attention even though this situation is not as important as many others that one hears about every day. I beg you please to take some action against it so that we see real evidence that you dislike such behaviour. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 23 July 1523. Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner in place. Letter 106 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs Ariosto gives his assessment of two Florentine citizens accused of crimes in the Garfagnana, acknowledging that one of them had duped him.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence. From Castelnuovo. Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. Although I believe that the Magnificent Judge of Barga has told Your Lordships that Giuliano Grigò has lied in his defence before you, I will still verify that the person Giuliano is complaining about for killing his relative is not from this province, nor subject to my jurisdiction. As far as I can tell, Bogietto from Sommacolonia is responsible for that murder. It may be that he was helped by some Lombard over whom I have no authority at all, since they are bandits who have rebelled against the government of My Most Illustrious Lord. But if he suffered this offence at the hands of men from Sommacolonia, perhaps with the aid of some of these other men who do not have anything to do with the ducal province, how can our citizens from Massa bear any responsibility? They

157

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

have no links through kinship, friendship, or even familiarity with the people who injured him. However, two or three times since I have been in this office, Giuliano has gone into the village of Massa and similar places with forty or fifty men and has knocked down doors, broken into safes, stolen bread and cheese and food, and has demanded to be lodged wherever at his pleasure as if war had broken out. And recently as people were assaulted on the highway by unknown perpetrators, everyone assumed that the companions of Giuliano were responsible. Concerning that other man Baccio de la Masa, it is true that he came to me and begged me to testify to Your Noble Lordships that he has never caused me any problems. He brought some people here from Castelnuovo, respectable people in my opinion, who testified that he was a calm man who loved peace and quiet and who never intervened except to do good deeds. For this reason I was pleased to write that letter for him, since I did not know of any bad thing he had done, nor did I think I should assume or imagine any.129 It is true that many others have since told me that he is the complete opposite of how he has been depicted. In fact, he is the counsellor, instigator, boss, and leader who prompts all the bad deeds that Donatello from Sommacolonia perpetrates in the Garfagnana. Donatello causes me more pain than any other subject of Your Excellencies because every few days I have huge claims against him: first one thing, then another, such deeds that would make you shudder if you heard about them. And in the legal book of our sentences his name appears more than that of any other person. Whether Baccio is guilty of many bad things or is a good man as others have depicted him, I will let others decide who know him better than I do. Since the men from this province readily take sides in political disputes and speak with partisan passion, I do not think I should trust one side more than the other. I believe that Your Lordships, who are most prudent and impartial, will know how to proceed. Nor will My Most Illustrious Lord shrink from doing everything possible to make the streets safe and decent people secure in their homes. For now it would be a good thing to see to it that your subjects do not come for any legal dispute in the ducal province, whether on their own or called officially, unless they come

158

Letters

in groups of two or three together to carry out their business and not armed (as they are most of the time). I saw to it under the order of My Most Illustrious Lord that our subjects would not come into your territory and yet if some disobey, they are probably bandits or other bad sorts over whom I have no power at all, because they have nothing in the world I can claim except their persons. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 6 August 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Ducal Commissioner in the Garfagnana. Letter 107 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto takes umbrage at the suggestion that he is not doing all he can to catch and prosecute bandits. It is especially difficult if they have few possessions to confiscate or none at all.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Concerning those men in your district of Minucciano who were assaulted by two men from Camporgiano that Your Lordships wrote me about previously, I did not need Your Lordships to outline what I ought to do. I answer by saying that if I could have caught the criminals with my own two hands, I would have. Or if the accused were found to have the material goods to repay the damage, I would have made them pay. In the first place, there is no proof that the assault was carried out by men from Camporgiano, and if it were by such bad men as they are, one assumes that the damage would have been worse. But this notwithstanding, I have not held back from doing everything possible to catch them and I am still working at it, as if I were certain that they perpetrated the crime. Thus far I have been blocked by their lack of material goods. I tried one of the men named Frate. It turns out that he does not have any worldly possessions to speak of other than a small house worth two or three scudi. I put this house up for auction but no buyer was forthcoming. His companion, called Margutte, also does not have much, and his mother appeared with a legal document

159

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

of donation drafted three years ago to claim what little that he has. I would put little stock in her document if I could find a buyer of certain parts of their woods and fields at a reasonable price. But I do not have the authority to make people buy anything against their will. Thus either Your Lordships excuse me from the case or tell me what to do in order to satisfy your subjects, as long as it is a reasonable course of action. In gratitude I commend myself to you. Castelnuovo, 7 August 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 108 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto relates how Moro, the ringleader of a group of bandits, has escaped from prison.130

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara, etc. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Now I am better informed on how Moro escaped from prison.131 I found a knife in his cell, which four witnesses have testified is from the son of Bastiano Coiaio, who talked with him all day yesterday, as I have reported in another letter.132 With this knife Moro dug out a crack in the doorway from the inside, through which he reached the lock on the outside of the door with its chain. With the knife he pushed back the bolt and the door opened. This is to make his escape more clearly understandable by Your Excellency. If I can, I will have this son of Bastiano caught. His father came to see me and with his usual arrogance spoke very superciliously, as he is wont to do.133 He wanted me to know that I do not write Your Excellency anything without him knowing about it too. In short, he is perturbed that I have criticized the brothers from Sillico and his words sound so convincing that out of fear from time to time I may check myself from notifying Your Excellency about how things happen. If my actions are good for him he wants to make me his friend. Then he said to me that coming from a certain place, he bumped into Moro just as

160

Letters

he had fled from prison, and Moro gave him a point by point description of how he had escaped. From this detail alone Your Excellency may conjecture whether or not Bastiano was an accomplice in this plan, for it seems less likely to me that he would have met Moro by chance than that he would have waited for him at a designated spot. In gratitude to Your Excellency I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 29 August 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 109 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports on crimes of the Madalena family. In a postscript he complains, as he does in the previous letter, about the breach of confidentiality in his reports. 134

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Following up on what I wrote on the deaths of the younger Count of San Donnino and his mother, Your Excellency should know that I acquired a document in which Pier Madalena, whose son Giovanni murdered them with his own hands, promised the elder Count Giovanni of San Donnino – subsequently murdered by Genese – that neither Piero nor any of his sons nor any other family member would harm or would order anyone else to harm the Count or anyone in his family.135 The penalty for doing so is two hundred ducats to be distributed half to Your Excellency’s Treasury and half to the offended party. For this reason I summoned Piero and I threw him in jail, where I hope to hold him more carefully than I did Moro. There is another surety of one hundred and fifty ducats to prevent Genese from harming the Count or his family. Of this specific bond, Piero is the full guarantor who is responsible for seeing that is paid. The year has passed since I put him in jail wanting him to pay it. But his son, Giovanni, who now has committed this horrible crime, went to Your Excellency and was granted an order that he be tried publicly so that he will be able to string the trial out for a long time. Finally I handed over the proceedings for the

161

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

trial to the captain here to counsel me in establishing the sentence but for some reason it was never resolved. When the trial is concluded, it would be good for Your Excellency to instruct me in writing to lock up this old thug for at least one hundred years so that he can pay up. It is the common opinion that all the bad deeds that have happened around here are instigated by him with his full knowledge. You should instruct the captain in writing to pronounce a sentence. Tell him that if he has doubts, he should send them in writing to Ferrara or send the whole trial to Ferrara. Not paying the fines and allowing them to be debated at length is the cause of all the bad things that take place in this province. To Your Excellency I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 29 August 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. In San Donnino people are siding with Madalena, among them the men from Costa, except for Bernardello, who I have learned is at Verrucole helping the men from the castle.136 I have been told that on the other side there is another armed group where Battistino Magnano went with the men from Sommacolonia and where the men from Sillico have gone or are about to go. I fear, unless it is extinguished quickly, the fire burning in the Garfagnana will flare up as in Frignano. The son of Lucca Pirotto has come back and those who support him are complaining because I wrote that he is the boss of the Pieve on the Italian side. But everything that I wrote I learned from them. I am saddened that the agreement between you and me has been broken, for in other letters Your Excellency promised me that you would keep secret everything that I write. Letter 110 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports that he has captured a member of the powerful Madalena family and he refers to some other crimes that have been perpetrated. He ends the letter wistfully expressing anxiety about his dwindling authority and the lack of support he is receiving from the Duke.137

To My Most Illustrious, Excellent, and Singular Lord of Lords, Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara.

162

Letters

My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I am sending a copy of the document in accordance with which I placed Pier Madalena in jail. Your Excellency will be able to determine whether or not he is obliged to pay that bond. And please advise me on whether or not I am to keep him locked up or, if I receive some form of surety, whether I allow him the freedom to move around the jail, as many who are pleading his case with me insist I should. A bandit named Battistino Magnano came through here to stage some robberies with his companions, among them Bernardello from Pontecchio and eighteen others, and ended up taking two hostages. One of them is the son of a man named Vergaia from Corfino on whom they placed a ransom of thirty ducats. When they had the guarantee that it would be paid within three days by a citizen of Corfino, they released him. As to the other, I cannot remember his name or the amount of the ransom. The father of the one on whom the ransom was placed and the person who paid the guarantee appealed to me that they do not want to pay and they are expecting that their houses will be sacked regardless. I did not know anything to give them other than words and to tell them that I am waiting for Your Excellency to send appropriate resources to bring order to this land. When I no longer have anything to say and have completely lost my credibility, I will flee in the night and return to Ferrara. I just received news that another person has been robbed and murdered between Sillicano and Gragnanella. Everywhere spirits are low and everyone speaks badly of me but more so of Your Lordship. In gratitude to whom I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 31 August 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 111 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto wants advice on whether or not to hold the annual fair because of the recent outbreak of the plague.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. On account of the suspicion of plague in Florence and Pisa I have been

163

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

advised not to allow the fair to take place, which usually is held at the celebration of Our Lady in September here in Castelnuovo. This has upset the people from the villages around here, whom I would like to keep happy. If I thought that we could do it without any danger of spreading the disease, I would hold it at the end of this month, since we could not hold it at the beginning. Because I recognize Your Lordships as most prudent and know that you would only advise me in good faith, before going further it seemed appropriate to appeal to you and to beg you please to give me your opinion concerning this. Are you of the mind that I should allow the fair to take place at Saint Michael’s as long as no new trouble arises? Do you think that for this year I should completely ban it or should I scale it down to as small as you might advise me? In gratitude I commend myself to you. Castelnuovo, 4 September 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 112 to the Elders of Lucca Another letter of introduction for a local citizen, resuming requests made in letters 61 and 63.138

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. My Most Illustrious Lord has sent me the attached letter with the order that I resend it to Your Lordships by a messenger on horseback who will carry back an answer concerning it. And so by the bearer of this letter, Giovanni da Montepulciano, I send it. I commend Giovanni to you for certain wrongs he had done to him earlier, which have left him in bad shape. Anything that Your Lordships might do for him, whether for justice or pity, will be well received by this man of good standing. I commend myself to you. Castelnuovo, 8 September 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner.

164

Letters

Letter 113 to the Elders of Lucca Another letter of inquiry on the situation of a local citizen.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Yesterday I received a letter from My Most Illustrious Lord in which he commands me to notify him on what has happened concerning Belgrado. Together with this letter he sent me a copy of a letter that he recently sent to Your Lordships about him. In order to fulfil my debt, I thought to send this deliverer to you again so that he might bring back to me as much news as there is about what has happened to the man. May Your Lordships be pleased to please His Excellency. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 17 September 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 114 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto asks the Luccan authorities to help recover the goods of the murdered San Donnino family.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Your Lordships may have heard how the sons of Pier Madalena from San Donnino murdered Count Carlo and his mother, who were Their Lords, and then ransacked their home. Because I have learned that they emptied the house of its goods as they pleased and took refuge at Gorfigliano in your territory, I beg you for the love of My Most Illustrious Lord, who claims to be mightily harmed by this most serious crime, and also for justice, that you please write immediately to the person who will be able to find and restore that property. This is a case of great interest to My Most Illustrious Lord. Do not do anything that will allow the goods to return to the hands of the criminals. To Your Lordships I offer and commend myself. Castelnuovo, 19 September 1523.

165

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 115 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs Ariosto requests that the criminal son of Pier Madalena be handed over to authorities in the Garfagnana.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence, etc. Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. Two years have not yet passed since a thug named Giovanni, son of Pier Madalena, from a region of the ducal province called San Donnino, had the local Count Giovanni murdered, His Lord and appointed the feudal Lord of the area by My Most Illustrious Duke. But only recently did we uncover the full crime: together with some fellow thugs, the criminal also killed his victim’s son together with his mother, totally wiping out that family line. He then ransacked their house, where he stayed for many days as if he were the heir. Then finally when My Most Illustrious Lord sent a troop of soldiers to punish him and the other criminals, he broke camp and, according to my sources, withdrew to Ugliancaldo, in the jurisdiction of Fivizzano overseen by Your Lordships. Because My Most Illustrious Lord and Your Lordships have agreed that bandits from the lands of one of you cannot take refuge in the lands of the other, I beg you please to command Your Magnificent Commissioner in Fivizzano to have this thug caught. As soon as he is captured, please let me know and I will have him locked away. Or take care of things in some other way so that I can get my hands on him in order that such a great, enormous crime does not go unpunished. And I likewise will stand ready to perform similarly for such requests or those of greater importance made by Your Lordships or other officials in your government. All you will have to do is ask. In gratitude I commend myself to Your Lordships always. Castelnuovo, 24 September 1523. Of Your Lords Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner of the Garfagnana.

166

Letters

Letter 116 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto requests that a local citizen be recompensed fully for the court costs of a settlement in his favour.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Magnificent Ioanne Baptista de’ Rossi, who is a resident in Sillano, has asked me to recommend his situation to Your Lordships. As you may know, the judge decided in his favour, but it seems that the fulfilment of the settlement will not cover the costs of the case. Where I could exercise justice I have always looked on your subjects favourably, so that now, so much the more ardently do I ask the same from you in exchange. First for justice, which in and of itself should be placed ahead of everything else, and for my love, which inspires me to proceed from good to best in pleasing the subjects of Your Lordships when they come before me, I beg you please to prevent this man from wasting away any longer at the tavern. Make sure that justice allows the swiftest possible settlement of the case. And to Your Lordships I offer myself as most ready to help in greater things. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 1 October 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 117 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto requests that a local citizen be allowed to harvest on land over the border in Luccan territory that he acquired through marriage.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The bearer of this letter is one of our citizens from Vergemoli who received as part of a dowry some land in the area of Castiglione and for four or five years has been cultivating it. Recently the Magnificent Representative of Your Lordships has prohibited him from continuing to do so as if he were a foreigner, perhaps because the commissioner does not want revenue to move outside your domain. I have

167

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

pity for this man and since I think that the subjects of My Most Illustrious Lord are also your subjects and that they ought to be treated similarly here and there, I commend him to you that you please prevent him from being harassed. I will do the same to your subjects who I know cultivate fields and have sources for harvesting food in this ducal province. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 7 October 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 118 to the Elders of Lucca Another request for the Estense citizen Belgrado to be allowed to go free.139

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The bearer of this letter comes to Your Lordships to settle the case of Belgrado. Because it seems that some who have claims against him must be satisfied before he can be freed, I beg Your Lordships to order these people to settle, since with a word you will be more successful than the relatives of Belgrado possibly can. I testify to Your Lordships that his liberation will be more pleasing to My Most Illustrious Lord than anything else he might have from you at the present. And he will be equally displeased if the situation is drawn out. I will be greatly indebted to Your Lordships, in gratitude to whom I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 8 October 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 119 to the Elders of Lucca A letter of thanks for having allowed a ducal subject to harvest chestnuts on his land in Luccan territory with a request that a general order be passed to allow others in similar situations to do likewise. Ever the efficient manager, Ariosto tries to practise good government even under duress.

168

Letters

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I thank Your Lordships for conceding to my request about our citizen from Vergemoli who will be able to harvest his chestnuts.140 I hope that when the nuts have dried and he is about to export them, you will continue to treat him no worse than I treat your subjects. Now, because many of our citizens similarly have cultivated fields in the territory of Your Lordships – so many that it would be much work if I were to petition for each one individually – I beg Your Lordships please to pass a general order to all your officials to allow our citizens who have holds in your jurisdiction to harvest their crops without any impediment (but not to let them export their harvests without an additional concession). I will do the same thing on my side; otherwise the chestnuts will go bad without someone to harvest them. It would be harmful to many and useful to few. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 12 October 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 120 to the Elders of Lucca On chestnuts, Belgrado’s plight, and confiscated donkeys. In this letter at least Ariosto seems optimistic about the law’s ability to control the borders.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I thank Your Lordships for the order that allows our people to harvest their chestnuts in your territory. I will do the same on our side. Concerning Belgrado, I will notify My Lord on what has been done and on what Your Lordships have written me about it. Next point: the bearer of this letter is from Lombardy and a subject of My Most Illustrious Lord. He has some fields in the vicinity of Castelnuovo. Together with some other men, he harvested a few of his chestnut trees and was transporting the harvest home on three donkeys. In the vicinity of Castiglione, his chestnuts and donkeys were confiscated by

169

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

order of your representative. Almost at the same time, I passed a prohibition against shipping chestnuts out of the province. When questioned by your representative in Castiglione, I agreed that if he should find someone transporting chestnuts out of this province without a receipt from me, he should feel free to seize the nuts, even if they claim to have harvested them in this province. But these poor men had already harvested their chestnuts before I had drawn up this convention with the representative and thus did not know about any new prohibition. And they had recently come under the jurisdiction of My Lord and thus, thinking that they could carry away their harvest as they pleased, they made this mistake. In my opinion they deserve to be pardoned, wherefore I have written to the representative and requested that he return the goods and animals. His Magnificence answered that he has written about the case to Your Lordships and he is awaiting your response. I thought that I should write too so as not to keep these men waiting unduly. I beg Your Lordships to write to your representative to return these goods, noting that they were taken before the agreement was finalized between us. Moreover, they are not harming your province at all, since their goods are from this ducal province. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 17 October 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 121 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto protests further impediments in the shipping of salt northward into the Garfagnana. This issue has arisen in letters 78, 79, 85, 86, and it comes to a head in 141.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Since Your Lordships and I have exchanged many letters on the transport of salt and since we have come to a good and clear understanding on where we stand on the matter and on how to move forward, I am taken aback to learn that once again Acconcio, the official in charge

170

Letters

of salt for My Illustrious Lord, has been prevented from shipping it. Once again he has to send for me to file a complaint with Your Lordships and once again I have to write you on his behalf. However this works out, I beg you please to order your customs officers not to prevent shipments of salt a single day, for to do so would inconvenience our ducal subjects. If you suspect that Acconcio has left behind some of the salt in Your Lordships’ territory and that he is being fraudulent with the revenues from its transport to your disadvantage, he is willing to put down as guarantee 1500 ducats in Lucca. He will thereby guarantee Your Lordships that not a single grain of salt is left in your domain. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 19 October 1523. Acconcio writes and sends a messenger posthaste to say more about this situation. I beg Your Lordships to resolve his case so that he need not always start over and so that My Most Illustrious Lord will not be bothered. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 122 to the Elders of Lucca As in letter 116, Ariosto requests again that court costs be covered for one of his citizens. More talk about the free movement of salt.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The bearer of this letter, Magnificent Ioanne Baptista, about whom many other times I have written to Your Lordships, complains that the settlement of his expenses has not yet been resolved even though the case has been judged in his favour. He has appealed to me as the one whose job it is to protect the rights of him and the other subjects of My Most Illustrious Lord. Therefore I write to Your Lordships again begging you not to let special favours for a few individuals take precedence over justice. And please do not claim that on occasion I favour my subjects over yours, because wherever justice leads, I do not fail to follow. If one has to have more respect for the people than for justice, I

171

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

will tend to abide by the law according to the way in which it is laid down. Yet I trust that Your Lordships will not fall short in allowing justice to assume its place. I explained to Acconcio what Your Lordships have told me: he himself must agree to give you an honest guarantee there in Lucca. Now I am waiting for you to let me know the amount of the surety you would like. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 28 October 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 123 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto seeks help in trying to capture the bandit Donatello. He has concrete suggestions on how to do so.141

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Your Lordships will have heard about the assault that took place at San Pellegrino against the sons and grandson of the Magnificent Andrea from San Donnino, who are citizens of yours. I have information that one of these thugs, named Donatello, from Sommacolonia, who committed not only this crime but many similar ones and who has now become a bandit again on the Florentine side of the border, has taken refuge in Ciciorana. If one went looking for him there, one would not be likely to miss him. I thought that I should notify Your Lordships of this so that, if you so deemed, you could secretly send out your constable in Fiattone, which is very close to Ciciorana. And if you do get your constable to go, let me know in advance so that I can send my crossbowmen from the other direction. Then at night all of them could meet in Ciciorana, where it would be easy to catch Donatello and the other thugs. That would cure the lands of Your Lordships and My Most Illustrious Lord. If you could also send a spy along the Fiattone road or the road to Mount Perpoli and other places near Ciciorana so that these robbers could be caught, it would be a deed worthy of praise. I will not stop trying for my part to

172

Letters

do the same and to advise Your Lordships. In gratitude to whom I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 3 November 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 124 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto requests help in capturing a juvenile delinquent who stole a mule from his own uncle.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Many days have passed since Thomeo from lower Vallico stole a mule from one of his uncles. Although I had a case against him as a minor, he never appeared or stayed in any place where I have authority. Since his uncle, the poor man who was harmed by the robbery, has suffered a serious loss, it could lead to trouble. His own children might injure either the father or the brothers of this delinquent. To avoid this and to provide for the compensation of this poor man, I would be happy to get my hands on Thomeo. I hear that he is hiding out in Borgo. I beg Your Lordships to order your representative to hold him at my request, if he turns up. And further to give him over to me, if I send for him, because he is a bandit in this province and according to our accords with Your Lordships you cannot deny this favour. To you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 6 November 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 125 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports that he has had some spies in Tuscany as far south as Pistoia monitoring movements of the Florentine forces. He approves of Moro and his fellow bandits from the Garfagnana as potential soldiers

173

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

in the ducal army. With Pope Adrian VI’s death on 14 September, the Estense were positioning to retake Reggio and Modena.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. In the Estense camp at Rubiera. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. As soon as I got the letter from Your Lordship sent on the tenth of this month, which was delivered to me by someone from Frignano on the sixteenth, I immediately sent a very capable person from here to Pescia and on to Pistoia. From other sources I searched and found information concerning Pisa and Pietrasanta, and, from another source, information on Barga. I have not found people in any of these places nor have I heard that anyone else has. The only strange thing was when a soldier from this area passing through tried to buy some muskets. When he was asked why, he answered that Polinoro da Vallico, a subject of Your Excellency, had orders from someone who was guarding the gate of Pietrasanta to assemble one hundred and fifty soldiers. The force was going to pass through Lombardy along the road to Fornovo to guard a castle of some nobleman or other, but he did not know which nobleman or which castle. Since then I have not heard anything about it, which leads me to believe that it was a fabricated story. It is true that this Polinoro is very much on the side of Count Guido Rangone. He spent a long time with him as a soldier in Modena and elsewhere. I would have sent for him, but he is not easy to find around here, since he is burdened with debts. If you think that I should renew the proclamation that no one can go after money outside the province, advise me to do so. I actually did it recently, although I did not have your specific orders. The bearers of this letter are Moro dal Sillico and his brothers, about whom recently Your Excellency wrote to me that I should have them become soldiers and if they did, you would pay them. They apologize for their delay, which was caused by their lack of provisions and by not having means to get there. I truly believed them because I know that they are poor. Now that they have harvested some of their chestnuts, which is the only thing worth anything that they have, they are coming. If Your Excellency will give them refuge, I believe that you will be able to put them to good use. They are valiant and most faithful to whom they serve. Nothing else is going on. In gratitude I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 20 November 1523.

174

Letters

I had Pierino Magnano write to Pistoia to one of his friends pretending to have heard that money is being given out there, which, if true, he wanted to send some of his friends to pick up. This is the answer here that I enclose. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 126 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports on the difficulties of capturing the bandits and that the locals have been troubled by the rumour that another Medici has been elected Pope. The letter ends on a telling note inviting the Duke to pretend that he has some good news even if he does not.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. In the Estense camp at Rubiera. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. The day before yesterday, the 21st, I received one of Your Excellency’s letters dated the 3rd of November. The bearer was a priest who said that he got it from someone in Sillano, who had got it from someone else again. The letter was in response to many of mine. It is not for me to respond except about those robbers who were working at San Pellegrino. If I were able to catch them on my own, I would not ask Your Excellency for help. But the crossbowmen that I have here are not able to do it because first the robbers are more numerous and then when the crossbowmen head out from Castelnuovo (as I have written in other letters),142 the word spreads quickly and they always end up having gone out in vain. Donatello and Cecarello, the bosses of these thugs, at the present have been banished again by the Commissioner of Barga and vigorously pursued by him. He and I have written to each other about catching them, but I do not know how the situation will be resolved. They withdrew to Ceserana, an area in Your Excellency’s territory four miles from here, where they felt safe because they had the support of the sons of Pellegrino dal Sillico and other bandits that remain there. Now that the sons of Pellegrino had been intending to come see you (I do not know if they came), the others will have fewer weapons, so we may be able to do now what we were not able to do before. But if they were so bold that they came in their group to see Your Excellency, you can

175

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

do what you think is best. I say clearly that you have a fine opportunity to purge this country of many bad weeds. I believe that Battistino Magnano, who after Bernardello is the biggest robber in the land, benefits from Your Excellency’s money. If he is no longer there, it was a bad idea to let him leave, and yet I am sure that he was there. It is true that the country still contains some bandits here and there even with them gone but the ones remaining are not criminals like the others. Concerning the people of Pier Madalena, they will no longer need their cleric, because they were condemned to the gallows with their property seized, as I have written at length to Messer Bonaventura. I wrote to the Commissioner of Fivizzano in order to catch Giovanni Madalena, who was still there, but he never answered me. Now I do not know where he is but I will find out what I can and notify Your Excellency. Next point: I received a letter from Lucca that informed me that one of the Medici is the new Pope.143 When people around Castelnuovo heard that news, it seemed that everyone had had their heads cut off. They became so afraid that there were some who wanted to persuade me that very evening to set up guards around the territory. Some thought that they should sell their property and others thought simply to leave everything behind and flee. I try hard to comfort them and say to them that I know Your Excellency and the Medici have a close friendship and that they should only hope for the best. It seemed that I should notify Your Excellency about this so that if you have something that I may use to pick up their spirits, please tell me, and if there is nothing, then at least pretend that there is something. There is nothing else to report. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 23 November 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 127 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto asks again for guidance on how to deal with the murderous Madalena family.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc.

176

Letters

My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. While I was investigating the whereabouts of Giovanni Madalena in order to inform Your Excellency with certainty, according to the orders in your letter of the third of this month, it was reported to me that last night, Monday, they went to San Donnino. That would be Giovanni Madalena and the brothers, Olivo and Nicolao from Pontecchio, and the other person who participated in the murder of Count Carlo, called Sartarello, and Genese, who had already murdered Count Giovanni, as well as about fourteen others. And they are there right now. The crossbowmen would not be able to catch them or even to confront them, especially in that place where they are in houses that they claim belong to them. In that community they are more favoured than the poor Counts were. May Your Excellency please advise me on what you think I should do. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 24 November 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 128 to Bonaventura Pistofilo Ariosto tries to work out a strategy for having the extensive Coiaio family summoned to meet the Duke in Ferrara.144

To My Magnificent Bonaventura Pistofilo, Worthy of Honour, Ducal Secretary, etc. In Ferrara. … This man Franceschino Coiaio, about whom I have written, is still around here and has been seen. I am afraid that on market day tomorrow, he will appear in the piazza. I cannot think that his arrogance comes from anything other than some plot to harm and disgrace the crossbowmen if they move to catch him, a plot already hatched with the men from Barga. As long as I do not have any orders from you, I will keep my eyes shut. I do not want to do anything bad hoping to do something good. If our Lord has a good understanding with the new Pope and the Florentines and if you are not afraid of new things, it would make sense to have the two outcomes be one. Either send up to twenty-five soldiers here or order me to send Bastiano, Franceschino’s uncle, and all the other Coiai –

177

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Nicolao, Bartolameo, Fantino, and Bernardino – all brothers of Franceschino, to appear before Your Excellency under threat of whatever penalty you deem best. Otherwise they will stay hidden away in their houses where they have retreated many times before. I had sent the attached letters by a man from Molazana but he came back with them because he said that along the way he learned that Your Excellency had departed from Reggio and was headed toward Milan. Therefore I am sending this messenger by post horses so that he will come and find you wherever you are. To Your Magnificence and to Obizo and my friends I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 26 November 1523. Ludovico Ariosto. Since our Lord has written that I send these men to Ferrara, I beg that you not let it appear to have been at my request. It is fine, however, to note that I advised him that Franceschino was here. Letter 129 to Alfonso d’Este A report on the politics of chestnuts.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Today a messenger sent by the men of Meschioso145 gave me a letter from Your Excellency, with which you direct me to let them collect all the chestnuts from this province that they have harvested in their own woods or in woods where they are paying for access. Before I gave them their licence, I wanted to notify you that this province is suffering seriously from famine, with wheat being sold at twenty bolognini per staiolo, a measure much smaller than our Ferrarese staro.146 Chestnuts, because they are so scarce this year, cost more than they have at any time since I have been here. We have had five or six markets and I have not seen more than one bag of grain. All around the trade has come to a halt, since not even a granule is forthcoming. From Lombardy, which perhaps could be the source of some, only a very little has appeared. Nor would any be coming at all, if not for the fact that I established the

178

Letters

following order: whoever ships in a staro of wheat or some other grain can take away two of chestnuts. If, having understood what I have written, Your Excellency still wants me to allow chestnuts to be shipped out by Lombard citizens, I will obey. But this province will go hungry and so much so that it will be able to pay Your Excellency but a little. These prohibitions have a negative impact on me but I have placed the common good before my own. By a longstanding custom the commissioners take three quattrini for every shipment of foodstuff that is exported. May Your Excellency give me orders. I commend myself to you. Castelnuovo, 26 November 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 130 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports on the movement of troops in Florentine territory. In the chaotic politics of the 1520s, reliable news is crucial.147

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Because recently Your Excellency commanded me to notify you if I heard of any movement of troops around here, I now let you know that armed Florentine cavalry are gathering in Pisa, and they have begun to make their way in this direction bit by bit. A few of them who took lodging at Pietrasanta said that they were waiting for five hundred cavalry before heading off all at once to Lombardy. The person who gave me this news did not know if they are heavily armed men or light cavalrymen, other than to note that they were all covered in metal. This morning Bastiano Coiaio told me that foot soldiers are also being recruited in Pisa. Today I will send someone by post horses to get better information on this. In the meantime I wanted to send this messenger both for him to deliver this message and because I would like to get responses to many letters that I have written recently. I had sent another messenger but he did not dare pass through Reggio. He reported to me that the roads are all broken down and that he sent

179

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

the letters care of Girolamo Nasello.148 In gratitude to Your Excellency I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 8 December 1523. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 131 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto reports that he has caught and held a Luccan bandit and he hopes that the Luccans will do likewise for him when he needs them to.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The representative from Gallicano asked me to apprehend Augustino, son of Pier Andrea da Verni, at his request. I had him caught and have him secured awaiting further instruction from Your Lordships. I did this in the hope that you will do the same whenever bandits from the ducal province come into your territory. After I had him caught, citizens from the municipality of Careggine complained mightily about his capture, lamenting that they had had him come to work for peace in their community. He came feeling safe, unaware of the treaties and accords between Your Lordships and My Most Illustrious Lord. For this reason they pleaded with me to let him go and when they finally realized that I was not willing to do so without Your Lordships’ blessing, they begged me to write you on his behalf, commending his situation to your attention. I am not sure how important his case is. I would like to please everyone but never at the expense of justice. If freeing him and thereby bringing about peace in the community of Careggine proves to be more useful than punishing him for the crimes for which he is charged, I beg Your Lordships please to let me release him. If, on the other hand it should be otherwise, you take action and decide as seems appropriate to you and I will not depart from your orders. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 24 December 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner.

180

Letters

Letter 132 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto requests that his soldiers who caught and handed over a bandit to the Luccans be compensated fairly.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I handed over the prisoner to Your Lordships’ constable. Deal with him as you please. Not only in this transaction but in every other situation where I believe I can please Your Lordships, I will always be very prompt, in the faith that you will do the same for My Lord. I certainly beg Your Lordships to commend the captain and our crossbowmen who caught him and who transported him to Borgo. I ask that they not be treated any worse than they would be by My Lord, who rewards the captain with four ducats for each bandit he captures and the crossbowmen, one ducat for each. The crossbowmen were told that this prisoner has a bounty on his head; if that is true, I am sure that you will not short them their money. For everything that comes to me from such seizures, I pass on a gift to Your Lordships.149 In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 27 December 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 133 to the Elders of Lucca Another request on behalf of a poor citizen from the Garfagnana to be able to harvest chestnuts on land he owns in Luccan territory.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The bearer of this letter, Giovanni from Sant’Anastasio, is the man to whom Your Lordships granted permission, at my petitioning, to harvest chestnuts in a wood that he has in the district of Castiglione.150 I was very happy when you granted him this favour and I hoped to be able to see to it that he would exchange his harvested chestnuts with one of Your Lordships’ subjects who similarly had a wood in the ducal

181

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

province. But your subjects have been more cautious, for (I do not know how) they have removed their chestnuts without requesting a licence from me and without me knowing that they had done it. So this poor fellow is not in a position to exchange his chestnuts but he must get his without you charging him at all. Wherefore I commend him to Your Lordships, asking that you let him have his harvest (not aware of any prohibition against this), and offering, where necessary, to pay Your Lordships’ subjects back with something greater than this. To you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 27 December 1523. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 134 to the Elders of Lucca A citizen in Ariosto’s jurisdiction has had his donkeys and chestnuts confiscated by others and the commissioner lobbies for justice on his behalf.151

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The bearer of this letter is a poor man hired by a Lombard to pick chestnuts in Massa, near here in my jurisdiction, for shipping to Lombardy. This poor man borrowed some donkeys, believing that the person who hired him had a licence, and then went to work for him. When he got to the area around Castiglione, the family of your representative took his donkeys and shipments. They assured him that they would deliver the goods and return his donkeys to him. The agreements that insure his business constrain him to return the donkeys, as he will recount when he presents his case to you. The representative of Castiglione is very well informed about the case and seems to have compassion for him, as do I. Nevertheless he has refused to undo what has happened to the man without a pardon from Your Lordships. In short, I commend this poor fellow to Your Lordships who does not have anything in the world except his own family, for whom he does as best he can, wearing himself out and suffering. On the one side he is threatened

182

Letters

by the person from whom he borrowed the donkeys, on the other, by the Lombard who has rights to the chestnuts, a terrible man. I beg Your Lordships to have returned to him everything that was taken in the name of mercy and pity, as well as in the name of his innocence and poverty, not to mention your love for me. In exchange I offer to show mercy out of love for Your Lordships to any of your subjects I find in a similar problem. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 12 January 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 135 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto, very upset with his commission, wants to be clear about the Duke’s confidence in him. Specifically he is bothered by the profiteering of the captain with whom he must collaborate and by the fact that the captain demeans him at every possible chance. Ariosto asks to be reassigned somewhere closer to home and proposes himself as Commissioner of Romagna.152

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I have taken note of what Your Excellency requests concerning the letter with which you recently authorized me to make accords and agreements so that these subjects might avoid the expenses of legal proceedings.153 You instruct me to erase any changes I may have already recorded. I will always obey Your Excellency, whether it may bring me honour or shame. But I must still say this: that I not […] considered how much contempt I have for putting Your Excellency in a position to satisfy further the ambition and greed of the captain. He is not content merely with doing his job and a good part of mine too; he would like everything to come to him. He would like to control everything I do and he endlessly ridicules my honour wherever he can. When he insults me about money, I do not pay much attention. In the past I let him do things believing that they would work out well and thinking that he would be

183

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

satisfied if he had financial gain. I did not want him to get all the honour and me all the shame. In part I did this to live in peace with him and not argue. I have never prevented him from doing his work except when sometimes I intervened to help out some poor folks who were defenceless. I always did this sort of thing without any profit for myself, as this entire province will testify willingly. But this man, as you will have learned, in order to turn a profit has already fined some of the people twenty-five lire for disobeying the statutes and to keep them from coming to me. Since that situation embarrassed me, I wrote to Messer Bonaventura so that he might have Your Excellency understand it and so that you might make clear to me whether or not you want me to intervene in any controversy. It seemed that you did not, which was enough of an excuse for me to ignore it, because I did not take up such a laborious task for my own gain or to be snagged by the captain but for the will of Your Excellency. You had me draft the letter that I wrote, which I now send back to you, which, upon receiving your commission, I registered in the book of statutes where […]. The entire province is aware of this, […] makes me erase the letter. Your Excellency can readily see how embarrassing it is for me to have to follow up on this, especially given that the captain will do this […] to the whole world before which I appear to be a brute. I […] Your Excellency that […] the captain will not […] for me […] desire that this letter be expunged from the register, I can do it, not for blame but rather for honour. Therefore I am proposing to delay removing the letter until I am out of office. In the meantime I will not intervene in anything that would give the captain reason to complain that I am upsetting his profit. Then when I leave office, if Your Excellency revokes this letter, it will not be a burden to anyone. On the contrary, I will gain some honour from this if it seems that you had faith in me which subsequently you did not have in others. And lest Your Excellency think that this has to be a long time from now, remember that on the seventh of February I will have completed two years in this position. I would gladly exchange this job for another one closer to you, which with your good kindness you could bring about, as would be, for example, the position of Commissioner of Romagna. With the experience that I have gained here in the Garfagnana, I would hope

184

Letters

to be able to do that job better than I have done this one. In gratitude to Your Excellency I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 12 January 1524. Your Most Humble Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 136 to Alfonso d’Este A brief report on how the ducal province finds itself in dire straits because of the bandits.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. If I had known yesterday that the Captain of Justice here in Castelnuovo was about to come to Ferrara, I would not have written at length to Messer Bonaventura about the bad situation in which the province currently finds itself because of five or six thugs who have gone back to their usual activities. The captain, who is as well-informed on everything as I am, can report about it in person better than I can write it up. And perhaps he will have greater credibility than my letters have had up to now. For your honour and benefit and for the health of this province, I beg Your Excellency that you just please listen to him about the behaviour of Bernardello, who has a small following. Also hear him out on how the sons of Pellegrino dal Sillico are acting – here the word is that they have received a special favour from Your Excellency154 – and what Battistino Magnano is doing with Donatello, Cecarello, and other well-known thieves. Learn from him what desperate straits this province is in, which believes that Your Excellency has forgotten it. There is nothing else to report. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 21 January 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 137 to Alfonso d’Este On the political machinations of the dubious character Tomaso Micotto, and on Ariosto’s desire to leave the Garfagnana.155 He is at a low point in his service.156

185

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. If Your Excellency had received one of my letters in which I indicated that the man who came endorsing Ser Tomaso Micotto157 in the name of the district of Trassilico was sent by men who are in cahoots with their local judge and are robbing and skinning the rest of the district alive, I do not think that you would give more credence to that other letter than mine.158 It falsely represents the entire district, whereas my letters never contain any falsehoods or lies at all. I gave that specific letter to someone from Ceserana, who, I think, took it somewhere to be opened, and it was not sent onward; I think it never left Castelnuovo. Nevertheless, since the captain from Castelnuovo is currently there in Ferrara, if Your Excellency wants information about the man named Ser Tomaso and about how he tyrannically holds the office of that district against the wishes of about three-fourths of the people, the captain will be able to give you correct information. And if you were of a mind to write any decent individual in this province and ask him for information about this fellow, everyone would report unanimously that he is an evil man – except for Pierino Magnano, who is his brotherin-law. But if he were sworn to tell the truth, even he would not be able to deny it. And Bastiano Coiaio would also not say anything bad about him, in part because he is the brother-in-law of a relative of his and in part because it is in his nature to protect the greedy. Everyone else would agree with me on this. […] Your Lordship who may have yourself when […] in the election of this judge one may have to call a man from home and in the presence of the commissioner he may have to cast his opinion by ballot. In that way the situation would be resolved without any fraud. But when one only convenes the auditors and officials of the municipalities for an election, the poor citizens are victims of fraud because each year all of these auditors and officials are reelected by each other, that is, by the officials, former auditors, and the judge. Now they would elect Ser Tomaso. Whoever has contrived for him to maintain his hold on this office has been provided a position as auditor or official or one of the other offices he controls. I am

186

Letters

certain that they will not stop carrying out their intentions now that those partial to the Italian side are in power. But if a man from home had to cast his opinion by ballot, no one could be tricked. This man, Micotto, hopes that when his time in office ends I am no longer here and that I will have been succeeded by another who might then guide his case more favourably than will happen with me in office. I have been told that Bastiano Coiaio is reported to have said this. If by the good grace of Your Excellency, I did not have to stay here, and if you found me another position closer and nearer to you, with agreeable conditions, I would greatly appreciate being transferred. Nonetheless, whether I have to go or stay, I would always desire for justice to have its place […] because that which I write […] them torn to shreds and diminished. May Your Excellency decide things as you see fit. To me it is enough to discharge my duty before God and the people who see how things really are, for I am only seeking a place for justice. In gratitude to Your Excellency I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 23 January 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 138 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto thanks the Luccan authorities for acceding to his earlier request on behalf of a citizen from the Garfagnana about his chestnuts and he asks that the request be carried out fully.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I thank Your Lordships for writing me that out of your love you are pleased to return the donkeys and chestnuts to this poor man who is the bearer of this letter. But my obligation would be greater if the outcome were realized. I do not know why the representative of Castiglione has not wanted to return his chestnuts, nor do I want to complain about it. The compassion that I feel for this poor man, who returns daily to cry before me, forces me to commend him to Your Lordships again. Having seen the poor old man’s need and the slight gain to be had by  whoever keeps the chestnuts, I beg you to see to it that the gift

187

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

that you have already made is carried out. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 26 January 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 139 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto laments that Alfonso does not support him consistently and requests a transfer once more. He gives the Duke reports on various bandits.159

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. If Your Excellency does not help me defend the honour of this office, I do not have the power to do it on my own. To be sure, if I sentence and threaten those who have broken the law and then Your Excellency absolves them or decides a case in such a way as to be more generous than I have been, you are contributing to the diminishment of my authority as magistrate. It would be better, if I am not fit for this position, to send someone who might be more suited for it. In any case by undermining what I do, whether I do it well or not, the majesty of the commissioner is weakened. This happened in regard to the letter registered in the statutes that was then expunged;160 it happened in regard to the absolution of Ser Tomaso with the confirmation that he can hold office till his term expires;161 and in regard to other things that I do not want to repeat. If such shame only befell me, I would not mention it, because Your Excellency can treat me like your servant. But since such offences discredit more the honour of the office and subsequently make the people with whom I must engage more irreverent toward the institution of government, I will not tolerate them without lamenting about it to Your Lordship. I wrote to Messer Bonaventura (assuming that letter arrived before this one) and so Your Excellency will have heard again that the men from Verrucole are holding as prisoner the man, Genese, who murdered Count Giovanni from San

188

Letters

Donnino. I sent straightaway a messenger and then the crossbowmen to have him brought here. They refused to hand him over to me, saying that they had notified Messer Bonaventura and until they had an answer from him they were not going to do anything else. As it seemed to me that they had no respect for my position, I answered in writing to order them to bring him here and to nominate someone of their group who would be willing to undergo questioning, which I was only going to do as much as justice required. They did not write back anything other than to pass on via a messenger’s report that they do not want to give him to me. Moreover, first to the crossbowmen and then to the second messenger, they claimed to know that I have taken money from the Madalena family. This, they said, is why I did not have their houses burned down. They said that they feared that if I had control of Genese, I would let him go for money. If Your Excellency still wants to pretend that they are not disobeying the commissioner – after the acts of irreverence committed by the followers of Simone and the priest all across the land (which you should know about, for I never fail to keep you informed) and after the bandits continue to hold up in the fortified areas near Bernardello’s house – I beg you to send someone here in my place who can stomach these insults more readily, for I do not have enough patience to endure them. I do not know what Your Excellency has decided about Bernardello.162 He cannot coexist peacefully with any of his enemies, whom he has in great numbers, and he must always move around town with an armed guard following him, provided kindly by the men from Verrucole. For his needs he has taken over the best fortress that Your Excellency has around here and his followers are still extorting money from people, as I have written in other letters and as I commanded the Captain of Justice to report to you in person. But if Your Excellency does not care about this or about the assaults carried out by Battistino Magnano and Donatello and other thugs who have taken over the bell tower of Careggine (where they have stayed for several days as if in a fortress), I ought not be more concerned about these issues than you are. But where such a great humiliation of my honour is concerned, I will protest and petition and I will beg and beseech Your Excellency to call me back quickly to Ferrara rather

189

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

than leave me here ashamed. In gratitude to Your Excellency I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 30 January 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. An additional point: the messenger that I sent a second time reported to me that Bernardello says that he took Genese to be his enemy at the petitioning of an important person and that he is not about to hand him over to me. Then the priest from Verrucole said that he had two letters from the Luccan officials concerning where they caught him. They are petitioning that he be allowed safe passage to his Lords. But the men from Verrucole are already beginning to challenge whether or not he was captured legally, as if they were judges. Letter 140 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto expresses his gratitude for the Duke’s renewed confidence in him as commissioner and he gives updates on the success of capturing some bandits. His previous letter apparently hit the mark.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. Most Illustrious and Excellent. I am really very happy and satisfied concerning what Your Excellency has decided about restoring the honour of my position when the time comes to confirm or elect the Judge of Trassilico again. I thank you most sincerely for this and also for having ordered that Genese be handed over to me, whom I had jailed before Your Excellency’s letters arrived. So, I am holding him in the tower’s basement with his feet in chains. I am not afraid that he will be stolen from me, because I do not intend to become complacent by alleviating his experience of the prison as I did with Moro dal Sillico. Tomorrow I have in mind to question him, since the Lieutenant of Justice, Messer Achille Granduccio from these parts, is here. He was the judge at criminal court in Ferrara. He will be perfect for the job, since he has experience and is a good man and […] still with him. If Your Excellency would like to send the Commissioner of Frignano or others, go ahead. But it is not necessary, since Genese is already

190

Letters

sentenced for life for the murder of Count Giovanni. Messer Ludovico Albinello, the commissioner at the time of the murder, condemned him, and his sentence is registered in the book of crimes. There is no need, therefore, to sentence him again. And if there is need, Messer Achille has volunteered to do whatever is necessary. The Commissioner of Frignano will not come here unless this province pays for his trip and these people avoid any expenditure as much as possible. If you want us to take care of it ourselves or to wait for another order, let your will be known. If I have written somewhat forcefully against Simone and the priest, I am dealing a bit with the disdain I feel from them having denied me this prisoner. I can change what I have written, for I do not want to put the blame on Simone. His intention was to give me the prisoner as soon as I asked for him; his other children who have better judgment were of the same opinion. Only the priest, who is very arrogant and believes himself too wise, together with Bernardello and others of like mind, prohibited the transfer of the prisoner.163 When I sent men to get the prisoner, Bernardello had gone I know not where with the priest. Simone had asked me to declare that I was ordering him to be taken and with many excuses and asking for one hundred acts of forgiveness, he handed him over to the crossbowmen. It is a good idea in my opinion and also in Simone’s not to give Bernardello access to the fortress for a long time, because all the people are very perturbed that a wicked man like him got to live there. And if for having already killed Bertagna, and […], he deserves a pardon according to the proclamations that were posted, the pardon (as published by me) should be contingent on him making peace with his enemies. In the meantime one can be satisfied with terms of safe-conduct but not that he ought to go around the whole province however he pleases. Concerning the other bandits, as the captain will have reported to Your Excellency, they were at Ceserana for a long time and then they went to Careggine and they were holed up there in the bell tower of the church. Then they returned to San Romano, where they stayed most of the time in the rectory of the church hosted by Messer Nicolò, the brother-in-law of Pierino Magnano. When the crossbowmen went to catch this prisoner, they say that they saw about eighteen of them off

191

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

in the distance. They never move in a group smaller than fifteen and wherever they go, they always take refuge in churches. Once inside, people from the countryside inevitably bring them food, some out of friendship and others out of fear. And for these actions, I cannot condemn either the municipalities or particular men because it cannot be proved that they have refuge from someone other than the priests, over whom I have no authority. Earlier I asked for authority from the bishops of Lucca and Sarzana and they did not want to give it to me. I do not see any way to get them into our nets because the crossbowmen are not capable of confronting them on their own. If one were to ask the Luccans or Florentines to send help, I do not think that they would send their constables here, since we are too far away. And even if they did send them, they could not do it so secretly as not to alert the bandits, who would have time to make a quick escape. Nor could I ever send men from town who do not belong to one faction or another. All these families divide along party lines. When one group moves about, the other party notifies all its followers throughout the land. In regard to this, for several days the Commissioner of Barga has been here working alongside me. He has asked that I keep him informed of the place where Donatello, Baptistino, and their companions withdraw. When he sends me a man whom I already know and who is not in these thugs’ faction, I will immediately dispatch the crossbowmen because they will have enough men to catch the villains. I did not fail in my duty but we never concluded our work […] immediately in this land and then from here they fly to where there is need. If there were ten or twelve soldiers with these crossbowmen so that I could amass twenty-five men together without turning to the locals, the captain of the crossbowmen says that he would go everywhere and he would not let these bad guys stay anywhere. Having this force ready, another thing would be necessary in my opinion. The captain ought to have an order from Your Excellency that in all those places where he finds bandits living, whether there are bandits in them at that moment or not, he should set them on fire, especially rectories of churches. The captain has shown that he could do this by himself. More than once I have had it in mind to burn down the rectory of San Romano, which is never so poor that it does not host some bandit or other. I have

192

Letters

already sent the crossbowmen there two or three times […] that when they went inside they found the bed still warm such that it is impossible that the bandit was not still around there. But the whole area unanimously denied having seen anyone. San Romano is situated on a height so that men cannot get to it without being seen. As I have said, I wanted to order them to burn that rectory down, then I was afraid that Messer Nicolò, the petitioner in Rome, would be harassed there. But if Your Excellency orders the captain to do as I have said, it would be a holy deed. And then do the same to the priest of Sillano, the ones from Ogno, Ceserana, and Careggine, and in the end to however many churches there are in this land, because all of them serve as refuges for bandits, in part because the priests want it that way and in part because they cannot do otherwise. Since Your Excellency writes me that the Commissioner of Frignano is about to come to Ferrara before I can, I am delaying sending the letter to him until I have more advice from Your Excellency. I have already taken care of the safe-conduct that Genese said he had from the Lords of Lucca, so that he will not be able to stop me. As far as I can tell, they have not granted him this, rather the official in the place where he was captured did. On account of this we must be patient. A while back, in another letter Your Excellency ordered me to command Porphirio and Polinoro da Vallico to come and meet with you. So I immediately sent the orders to the Judge of Trassilico, who sent them to Vallico, and today he reported to have done it. He said that he had Porphirio in person with the other one at his house. If I have anything else to report to Your Excellency, I will do it in other letters, since this one is long enough. In gratitude to Your Excellency I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 8 February 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 141 to the Elders of Lucca Further concerns about the free shipping of salt and chestnuts across foreign territories.164

193

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. One of Your Lordships’ subjects was transporting chestnuts from Castiglione across the area of Massa in the ducal province when someone from Massa confiscated his nuts and animals. He filed a complaint with me. When I contacted the man from Massa to question him about why he engaged in this act of brute force, he told me he did it because the same thing had happened to him in Lucca regarding some salt that he was carrying from Pisa. Without letting him know that I think he has a legitimate grievance, I made him return the load and the animals to the subject of Your Lordships. I would have punished him except that in addition to him many men from this province have complained that the customs officials in Lucca treat the ducal subjects badly regarding salt and other merchandise. Their transit has been blocked and the fee for taxes has grown more than it should have. They have also complained that they get no justice from Your Lordships. Perhaps for this reason many behave as this citizen from Massa did, trying to get even where they can. For this reason they appealed to My Most Illustrious Duke and they have delivered a directive from him to Your Lordships. I kindly recommended that they send this letter to you via courier so that they might learn what you think about the situation. I told them that I believed that you did not want such acts of violence to take place. Moreover I told them that I was sure you would not do anything that involved injustice. Thus the messenger is off with the ducal letter in the hopes of obtaining from Your Lordships an honest and fair outcome. I beg you please to have the salt returned to this man from Massa. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 18 February 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 142 to the Elders of Lucca Further requests on behalf of a citizen who is harvesting and shipping chestnuts and flour.

194

Letters

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Even though it is not natural for me to intercede on behalf of criminals, I am nevertheless constrained to ask you please to revoke and rescind the sentence against Geminiano di Christophoro da Riccovolto, on a charge of illegally shipping chestnuts and flour out of Coreglia, where he currently makes his dwelling, against your ordinances. Many friends have pleaded with me to make this request, which I do in part because he is originally a subject of My Most Illustrious Lord. Please act on it out of your love for me and out of the respect that I have for you. I am led all the more to plead his case because he claims to have made his mistake following the example of many others who have done the same thing. If he had thought he was doing something that might upset Your Lordships, he would not have committed the mistake. Rather he would have followed the more normal course and carried his provisions into the area. I beg you then please to take to heart the situation of Geminiano. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 27 February 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 143 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto complains about the activities of one bandit, Donatello, and he recounts a skirmish between bandits led by the infamous Moro and the crossbowmen out on patrol around Castelnuovo. Fragmentary letter.

My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. The men of Ceserana have just now reported to me that Donatello is around there with a good number of bandits. Yesterday he became violent with a poor fellow from whom they tried to extort money and when the man could not pay it, they beat him up. If the men from Sillico who would like to have Your Lordship’s favour were to do what they have proposed, that is hunt down the bandits, these thugs would not dare stay in Ceserana.

195

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Then today the crossbowmen went for a leisurely stroll to Pieve, about one mile from here. They wanted to enter the rectory but the door was locked by the brothers of Moro dal Sillico. When the crossbowmen forced open the door to enter, one of the robbers stuck his head out of a window and said that if the crossbowmen did not leave, they would cut them to pieces. The captain immediately notified me and I moved out with some men from Castelnuovo to go and help them. When I got outside the village a crossbowman came to meet me and he told me that the priest had let them escape through a back door. I came back here and wrote this letter, since a messenger is leaving right now. I am not completely sure about the situation because the captain of the crossbowmen has not yet returned. This letter should serve only to notify Your Lordship that these men from Sillico ought to be happy to be allowed to remain at Ceserana and Sillico without wanting to come here to the gates of Castelnuovo every day. And perhaps if I investigate the situation better, I will discover that some other bandit ought to be […] Castelnuovo, 5 March 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 144 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto recounts developments in the legal case between Pier Morello and Iacomo Pisano first detailed in letter 102. The tone of a letter like this one that deals with local citizens who are not involved in banditry is very different from most of the other letters Ariosto sends to Ferrara.165

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I believe that the bearer of this letter, Messer Iacomo Pisano, will complain that the case pending between Pier Morello and himself has not been concluded. And lest Your Excellency think it my fault, I will explain to you what has happened. I convened the four deputies in charge of taxes for importing and exporting, before whom together with me the case was presented,

196

Letters

and we carefully reviewed the regulations of importing and exporting and collected information from all those involved with the tax in the past, including some who could remember it from its inception up to today. Everything seemed perfectly in order […] whether Messer Iacomo ought to have been absolved or not according to the request of Pier Morello, only one doubt remained: should the losing party be sentenced to pay the court costs or not. Since neither the four deputies nor I are experts in the law, we agreed to ask for advice on this specific question. And because we suspected that the Captains of Justice in this province were not impartial, we concluded to send the case to Lucca, where we were more likely to get a faster response than Ferrara, which seemed too distant. In the intervening period, Pier Morello filed his appeal in Ferrara either because he did not trust that a favourable decision would come out of Lucca or because he wanted to lengthen the duration of the case. He had a letter sent out that ordered me in no way to follow the Luccan position and to send to Ferrara for counsel. For this reason, I asked the parties involved to send a copy of the case to Ferrara. First, Iacomo responded that he did not want to submit his copy because he was not pleased to have his case scrutinized by any others than the men to whom the Lord had assigned it, that is, to me and the four deputies. Pier Morello did not want to submit anything other than those proceedings that were […]; for this reason I did not do anything else other than assume the responsibility of working out an agreement. But Pier Morello did not want to agree to anything. The current deputies from Castelnuovo will unwillingly pass a judgment that contradicts what the previous four men approved last year so as not to harm one party or the other. Nevertheless if Your Excellency empowers me to sentence according to the findings of the first commission, that is according to the opinion of the four, I will settle the case immediately. If you also think that the case should be settled in Ferrara, order me to require that one or both parties have copies made of their documents, which I will then send to Your Excellency. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, [March] 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto.

197

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 145 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto pleads the case of several men from the Garfagnana who are accused of shipping chestnut flour illegally.166

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. The bearers of this letter are poor men from the ducal province who, due to the great famine in our land, had gone to Borgo to buy three loads of chestnut flour. Either out of ignorance or to save the money they would have spent on the permit, they loaded up their packs without any special licence. Passing through the area of Gallicano, they had the misfortune of meeting the local representative, who took the flour and their animals. In this case if Your Lordships do not show pity in your usual merciful way, the poor fellows will be ruined and they will die of hunger. Affected by their pleas and by my compassion for the impoverished, I am writing this letter to Your Lordships, since in you I have faith that you will not deny me any favour I ask. Moreover I know you to be most merciful and full of pity. Thus I beg you to take these poor wretches to heart and to grant them as charitable alms what they have appropriately lost for having disobeyed Your Lordships’ orders. In gratitude to you I commend myself at the same time. Castelnuovo, 17 March 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 146 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto wants to know more about the progress of the plague.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Because we are about to set up the fair here in Castelnuovo and there continues to be talk that some areas through the Maremma toward Rome are suspected of the plague and because I am sure that Your Lordships are completely up to date on it, I beg you please to notify me how

198

Letters

things are and with which areas we should be especially cautious. If the situation is dangerous, I beg you to have a proclamation posted that anyone who comes without documented certification of his health will not be accepted in Castelnuovo. With gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 28 March 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 147 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto claims to have done what the authorities wanted him to do regarding a criminal, Giovanni Pierotti from Colognora, a Luccan citizen who was caught in Estense territory.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Your Lordships will be pleased to gather from the bearers of this letter, who are subjects of yours, what has been carried out regarding your request concerning the prisoner. With gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, the last day of March 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Reverential Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 148 to the local representative of the Luccans in Gallicano Ariosto notifies the appropriate authority that a citizen of Lucca held in prison in the Garfagnana committed suicide.

Magnificent Representative. At around midnight just now, when my servants went to take food to the prisoner from Colognora whom I was holding here at the request of Your Magnificent Lords, they discovered that he had strangled himself with his own belt, tying one end of it to his neck and the other to one of his feet. I thought I should immediately notify you so that Your Magnificence may send someone

199

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

to retrieve his body, since I cannot hand him over to you alive. To Your Magnificence I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 3 April 1524. Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 149 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto notifies the authorities that one of their citizens being held in prison in the Garfagnana committed suicide.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Although I believe that Your Lordships are aware of what happened to the prisoner whom I had apprehended at Fabbriche at your request (since I immediately notified your representative in Gallicano about it), nevertheless to be absolutely certain I think it is my duty to report to you the following. Once I had him locked up in the bottom of the tower, he strangled himself by tying one end of his belt, which was barely two arm-lengths long, to his neck and the other end to one of his feet. It seemed an impossible thing to have done. I wrote the representative and asked him to send someone to whom I could hand over the body of the dead man, since I could not hand him over alive. But since no one came and there was no way to preserve the body, I had him buried outside our walls along the riverbank. This will be your official notification. To you I commend myself and I always stand most ready to help as you order. Castelnuovo, 9 April 1524. Letter 150 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto recounts the situation in the Garfagnana with the invasion of the troops of Giovannino dalle Bande Nere.167

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. This morning I arrived in the Garfagnana in good time only to discover that the entire area was

200

Letters

scared to death and that almost everyone had abandoned their property (according to the people at Castelnuovo). I found nearly four hundred non-locals here who had come at the request of Pierino Magnano, Acconcio, Soardino, and others, all of whom exhibited an appropriate deference toward Your Excellency. I will give you their specific names when we have more leisure. Around fifty soldiers came from the government of Montefiorino. Many other governments on the mountain of Modena and Reggio responded to my letters, which I had written from Montefiorino concerning this. They promised to send me immediately a good number of people so that even if I could not recover the territories that had been taken, I could hope that they would not take Castelnuovo from me. My intention was to defend and not to attack, since I had not had an answer from Your Excellency. I am sorry that yesterday our soldiers did go out and attack them at Camporgiano with two of our men dying although they fought well. Six of the enemy died, as the Captain of Justice must have written Your Excellency in detail. Today two things have happened that are excellent for us. The first is that some of the enemy forces attacked each other and their captain was seriously wounded. I had a spy who reported this situation to me and I mustered five hundred soldiers to return to Camporgiano and strike at them. But just now Ser Constantino, the notary from Camporgiano, where he was a prisoner, has arrived and he has reported to me that Morgante Demino also arrived today in Camporgiano with twenty-five cavalrymen and sixty musket men assembled from the various men of Lord Giovannino. They had seen to it that he came to help them because they were under siege and practically prisoners. And this man Morgante, seeing that they were outnumbered by Your Excellency’s forces, spoke out harshly and claimed that holding the town of Camporgiano was being carried out without Lord Giovannino’s knowledge. He ordered that they leave off the undertaking and they followed him away. He had Ser Constantino the notary freed without any problems and he assigned him to Your Excellency’s fortified castle, asking him to see if he could save the life of Captain Todeschino, who is seriously wounded. So, the castle has been returned to our control. I immediately sent the captain with the crossbowmen to take up a position inside it until you

201

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

order us otherwise. I ordered him to save Todeschino and have him taken care of. I have in mind to go there tomorrow and question him to learn who got them to come, because I am sure that he was called by people from the province, all the more so since Ulivo and Nicolao from Pontecchio and two sons of Pier Madalena and Bosatello, also known as Cornacchia,168 are on the side of the enemy. Now, I would like to beg Your Excellency’s forgiveness but I want to complain a bit about you. The other day when I was in Ferrara looking for a petition, among the many that there were signed by Messer Bartolomeo169 in his own hand, I saw one filed by these two brothers, Ulivo and Nicolao. In addition to the other crimes that they have committed, they were part of the group that murdered those poor Counts from San Donnino. They made their petition requesting a pardon for the murder of someone with whom they were at peace. Their plea was fulfilled unconditionally and Messer Bartolomeo signed off on it at the same time I was in Ferrara. It seems to me that since it had to do with the Garfagnana, I should have been asked about the situation of these men, not to mention that fact that I was in Ferrara at the time. But so much for that. Your Excellency, if a Lord ever owed anything to a subject, you owe much to Morgante Demino, because without his wholehearted help, I do not know if Your Excellency would have got back the castle in Camporgiano. In my opinion it is the most strategic castle in the land and deserves to be kept in much better condition than it currently is, since it has only one captain-lawyer with one servant in it. It would be better to tear it down completely than to leave it unguarded. Furthermore, all these men complain up to the heavens that Your Excellency takes their money and that your new strategy abandons the castles that could defend them from the criminals. Morgante Demino will not always show up to have the castles restored to Your Excellency, believe it or not. There is nothing else to report. I commend myself always to Your Excellency. Castelnuovo, 5 July 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. One additional item: These enemies have taken prisoner some subjects and servants of Your Excellency. I have written and asked Morgante to free them. If Your Excellency could write another letter,

202

Letters

it would satisfy the people. They are still very worried that these thugs will continue fighting, and that if we cannot take control of the castles, the invaders will continue to assault our citizens in the countryside. For this reason they plead that Your Lordship not delay to take the action that you deem right. Letter 151 to the Captain in Reggio Ariosto updates the ducal captain in Reggio on recent developments in the province. He explains the chaotic situation caused by the invading forces of Giovannino dalle Bande Nere.170

Magnificent Knight Worthy of Honour to me, Lord Ettore Sacrati, Ducal Captain of Reggio. In Reggio. My Magnificent Captain Worthy of Honour. I just received Your Lordship’s letter, which documents your willingness to help us, for which I commend and thank you mightily, but with God’s grace I hope that there will be no need for your help. And so that Your Lordship may understand what has happened, I am verifying that after I had written you from Montefiorino, that morning I came to Frassinoro with the hope of having some soldiers from that judiciary closer to here, but everyone sent words, not people. I went to Castelnuovo and I found out that the day before the enemy had come all the way to the villages outside the town to ask for land. Not getting any response according to their liking, they turned back. Our army, which had nearly four hundred non-local soldiers who were partisans and friends, and all on the Italian side, followed them to prevent them from destroying the countryside. At Camporgiano the enemy turned around and attacked. Up to then they had been marching in an orderly way whereas our men were highly disorganized. The harm was equal with three or four dead on both sides and our men retreated to safety in Castelnuovo. As soon as I got here, I had news as evening fell that enemy troops had attacked each other and had killed their captain. Therefore our men immediately went to find him in the chaos. While they were preparing to set out, Ser Constantino, who had been a prisoner of the enemy at Camporgiano, arrived here. He reported

203

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

that Morgante del Tino, who at the present is serving in the army of Lord Giovannino […] sent through the area of Massa, had arrived at Camporgiano. Morgante was very troubled about the wounded captain (it is not true that he died), who had asked him for foot soldiers and men with muskets; Morgante had wanted to comply but had not done so. He immediately ordered those soldiers to retreat and they all withdrew leaving behind the wounded captain. Morgante then handed over the castle to Ser Constantino. When I understood what was going on, I immediately sent my crossbowmen to Camporgiano to get the wounded captain, whom I have here in our castle. I wanted to notify Your Magnificence of all this. You should not have your men go forward unless I write you otherwise. Even though Morgante said that Lord Giovannino does not know anything about these things, I do not trust him because I have heard that many people are passing by on foot and horseback from Pietrasanta to Lunisana. Nothing else is happening. To Your Lordship I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 7 July 1524. Of Your Magnificence Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 152 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto asks the Luccans for help in catching various bandits who he suspects may have been involved in encouraging Giovannino’s forces to come into the area, as he mentions in the previous two letters.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Upon returning from Ferrara, I found our province in chaos, as I believe Your Lordships have heard. Given the way things have developed since, I am certain that some of the outlaw thugs of this area are the ones who have got these people to come in the hopes of having the whole province sacked. However it may be, with these people was someone named Bogietto da Sommacolonia, nicknamed Cornacchia. I believe that Your Lordships are very aware of his robberies and assaults as well as those of Olivo and Nicola from Pontecchio, and one of the sons of the late Pier Madalena, who murdered Count Carlino and his

204

Letters

mother from San Donnino. I have recently been notified that this Cornacchia is at Gurfigliano in the territory of Your Lordships, along with one of these others mentioned above. I do not think that I have to remind Your Lordships of the treaties between you and My Most Illustrious Lord confirmed by Magnificent Messer Santuccio and me. Nor do I need to state that in similar cases I have responded to every request you have made of me, for that would imply that I distrusted you. And to tell the truth I do not have less faith in you than I do in My Most Illustrious Lord to preserve this government and to work for justice. It remains for me to let you know that Cornacchia is at Gurfigliano (I am not sure of the others) and for me to beg Your Lordships, as I now do plead, that in the best way you can, either by sending your constable or by ordering your subjects in the area to bring about that effect, you ensure that he is caught. If others of those named above are there and are caught let me know. I ask this favour of Your Lordships, to whom always I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 7 July 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 153 to the Elders of Lucca Reassurances to the authorities in Lucca that Ariosto will try to broker an agreement about the ongoing border dispute.171

Magnificent and Noble Lords. I have seen what Your Noble Lordships write to me about the disagreement between your subjects in Cardoso and ours in Vallico. I am sorry about their insolence. I will call the parties together and inasmuch as is expected of me, I will not be unjust. If our citizens have erred, I will not shrink from punishing them, because we still hope that your citizens and ours might live in harmony and peace. And to Your Noble Lordships I continue to commend myself. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 15th day of July 1524. Of Your Magnificent Lords Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner.

205

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 154 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto presents himself as peacemaker.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords, Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. From your citizens in Cardoso, Your Noble Lordships will learn how their case with our citizens from Vallico was resolved. I am not about to create any disagreement between your subjects and ours and I will do my best to prevent any wrong or violence from being inflicted on them. To Your Noble Lordships I continue to commend myself. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 18th day of July 1524. Of Your Magnificent Lords Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 155 to Alfonso d’Este Reports of squabbles among provincial officials over who should pay for messengers back and forth to Ferrara. Ariosto presents a logical way of dealing with the situation, demonstrating that even at this relatively late date in his tenure as commissioner he is engaged in fostering sustainable government.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Stopping at Montefiorino as I was returning here, I learned that the men of Lord Giovannino were in the Garfagnana. I notified Your Excellency by dispatching three messengers provided for my use by the judge: one to Minozzo, Quaro, and Toano. I sent an additional one to Reggio, paying for him out of my budget. Then, when I arrived here, the judge sent some letters from Your Excellency by one of his men, which had been delivered to him from Sestola, writing to me that I should pay the messenger. For that first time I had the messenger paid, but to the dismay and complaints of the Castelnuovans, who claimed that they should not have to pay for messengers sent here at the service of Your Excellency. They should

206

Letters

only have to pay for those that they send to Ferrara or Reggio or any other place in service of Your Excellency. In my opinion they were right and so I did not want to make them pay for other messengers dispatched by that judge even if they were delivering letters from Your Excellency sent through Reggio. I told him in writing to have his people pay for the messenger or to lodge a complaint with Your Excellency so that you might determine who might have to pay that expense. The judge answered me as you can see in the letter here enclosed. Because there is now this controversy over who should pay, it could happen that some letters of potential importance might go to Montefiorino intended for here, which they would not want to send on. I thought that I should notify Your Excellency so that you would work out who should pay these messengers. And I […] from the […] in the […] think that the men from Montefiorino are very wrong, for it is not for them to judge whether Your Excellency’s letters sent here are valuable for this province or especially whether or not they are valuable for Your Excellency. Because if the Captain of Reggio or the Lords of Lucca or others were to send a letter here for me to forward to Montefiorino as part of my responsibility to Your Excellency, the citizens here would pay for the delivery and they would not try to have the men from Montefiorino pay. I beg you to make a decision about this disagreement. If you think that the men from Montefiorino are wrong, let them know of their error in your communication. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 20 July 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 156 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto reports that local bandits are positioning themselves to switch from one side to another if the Duke fails to respond to their needs. They have gone directly to the Duke, making it necessary for Ariosto to explain what he perceives to be their ulterior motives.172 He ends with a description of another criminal priest who has died under his watch. Ariosto wants the Duke to know that he treated the priest well but at the same time he does not mince words about the priest’s evil deeds and he gives his opinion on the man’s moral shortcomings.173

207

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I do not know what Your Excellency has arranged concerning the musket men whom the men from here asked you to provide (so they tell me) and about whom you sent the light cavalryman Bigo da Imola to report back to you in person. It so happens, I believe, that the main intention of the men who requested this of you is not to indulge Your Excellency but rather, if you deny their request, to have a ready excuse for changing sides as they please the next time the need arises. Publicly they are saying that since you do not want to defend them, they at least have the licence and liberty to give themselves over to whoever is able to defend them and protect them peacefully. Your Excellency should not believe that if they threw themselves into this little bit of war and called up nonlocals at their expense it was out of any great love for you. Rather, they did it for their defence and to have ready an escort in case they needed to flee and save themselves. Also they want to be able to cut their enemies to pieces when necessary. The Italian side is the one that called this gathering and with them, Acconcio, although he is on the French side.174 They called it because of the new family ties that they have established, seeing that the men with Lord Giovannino had with them the sons of Pier Madalena and Cornacchia and Olivo, who are on the French side. If Lord Giovannino’s soldiers had been in a greater number than they are, and if even so few in number attacked Castelnuovo, Your Excellency can be sure that they would all flee and the area would be abandoned. Proof of this is that absolutely all of these men fled with their women, children, and all their property. Nothing was left except my own things in the castle. I emphasize that there was no exception to this. I believe that Pierino Magnano will try to exaggerate the merits of Battistino Magnano and the other bandits and their followers who are also robbers so that Your Excellency will grant them a pardon. But these men have been so satisfied by the murders they committed, the money they extorted, and the robberies they pulled off before this little battle that they deserve punishment. The fighting had hardly ended before twelve or fifteen of them had headed out to steal some livestock, and butcher and sell the meat on

208

Letters

the spot at a good profit. Then they spread out to the surrounding villages and extorted money from whomever they pleased. They jerked a chaplain around so fiercely by the balls that he agreed to pay eight ducats then they went after his patron but that guy got out of there fast and fled to Castiglione. If the men of Castiglione had not leapt in to help him, they would have killed him. They grabbed another priest and said that they wanted to take him to the judge in Camporgiano, that is to Battistino Magnano, and out of fear that poor man posted the money and paid a certain amount of ducats so that they let him go. I would go on too long if I wanted to write to Your Excellency all the appeals I have had because of them so at my leisure I will draw up a list and send it on to you. I still cannot be quiet about this: four men from Sillicagnana came together to see me pretending to come for another reason and when they got here they began to cry and did not want to tell me why. I asked them what they wanted from me and they said that they could not speak, since their lives were threatened if they did, and that for the love of God I not say that they mentioned anything of this to me. And for […] the evil inclination of these thugs […] Castelnuovo, may they send them to you […]. Ser Constantino, the notary from Camporgiano, is taking refuge here. He is not about to return to his office since the new officials do not want him there. To his discredit, in my opinion, the captain does whatever they command him to do. I would like to catch these thugs and have them hanged immediately without a hearing. But I do not have sufficient forces to do it, in part because I have only ten crossbowmen and also because I do not trust them. They have been here for such a long time that they have become no less impartial than the locals themselves and the majority of them now have wives and relatives from around here. For this reason I wrote and urged the Captain of Reggio and the Commissioner of Sestola to help me out with thirty soldiers each. I do not know how they will answer me. If this current written message seems different from what I recently sent, that is as soon as I had returned here, when I then wrote to Your Excellency and praised the men from Castelnuovo for behaving in such a way to save your state, do not be amazed now or accuse me of being inconsistent and flighty. For I wrote then what I believed to be the case. But seeing the unbelievable

209

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

sequence of bad events makes me swear over the truth of this message that I am now writing you. I also have to complain about Pierino, who left from here with a large number of soldiers and went to Camporgiano to speak with these thugs. In that poor area, according to what people in Camporgiano have told me, he wanted to find lodging wherever he pleased giving the locals this burden in addition to the other damages that they have suffered. I have been misunderstood at other times for saying this, yet I will say it again: for the health of this land (at no additional cost to Your Excellency) it would be best to keep those bandits at a distance forever and ever […] As I always wrote and I am about to write freely to Your Excellency concerning all those movements that I see, I am going to change my position from one of praise to one of blame because of their behaviour. I beg Your Excellency and your secretaries to keep secret whatever I write, positive or negative. For, God is my witness, neither personal affection nor hatred that I may have for one person or another pushes me to write and talk about what has happened; rather, it is the love of justice that moves me to write. An additional point: I believe that the wounded captain of the men of Lord Giovannino will recover fully. When he was a little better I questioned him face-to-face and I noted down his answers, a copy of which I am sending to Your Excellency. I believe that part of what he is saying is the truth and part is his attempt to keep things quiet. Regardless, you can come up with your own conjectures about the rest. I will also send some other testimonies not given under duress by the priest from Soraggio de li Bosi, when he came here, who was arrested at the petitioning and commission of Pope Clement. He has just now died, having been sick for a month. From the time I got here, I did not make him keep his chains on, allowing him visits with doctors and family, and with the priests and friars who were treating him. I granted him all the provisions at my disposal. He died anyway. He is better off dead because he was an evil beast who scared all of Soraggio to death, raping women, and beating and wounding everyone. Every day someone was approaching me about him. There is nothing else to report. To Your Excellency I always commend myself. Castelnuovo, 20 July 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto.

210

Letters

Letter 157 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto asks for gunpowder.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince and Lord, My Lord Worthy of Honour, Alfonso d’ Este, Duke of Ferrara, etc. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Lord Most Worthy of Honour. Although I do not think that there is an immediate need nor a specific situation at the moment, but because sometimes things come up that one has not anticipated, it would not be out of line for Your Excellency to have a load of gunpowder shipped to these castles for whatever situation might arise: Castelnuovo, Camporgiano, and Verrucole. Gunpowder is very expensive here. If Your Excellency has some in Rubiera and would like to have a load shipped from there, I will see to it in a few days to pay the tax of having it shipped here. At present there is no willingness to pay the charge because we have a credit due to other costs incurred. Your Excellency will do these men a favour and it will encourage them more. If you do not do it, these castles will not have any provisions if something should come up so that Your Excellency should take the most expedient option. In gratitude to you I continue to commend myself. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 24th day of July 1524. Of Your Excellency Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 158 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto shares a plan for catching some of the bandits.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Lord Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. If someone could string up four or five of the bad guys in this province, it would be enough. There would be no need to send other men here or to spend any more money. The guys I refer to are: Battistino Magnano and Donatello and some of their companions on the one hand, on the

211

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

other there is Cornacchia da Sommacolonia, concerning all of whom I have lodged formal complaints with Your Excellency. Regarding Cornacchia, I have already written about how we might catch him with the help of the Luccans. But for these others, who are more important, an opportunity has come up that will allow Your Excellency to catch them, if you so desire. After the priest from Bosi died while being held prisoner here, it happened that Messer Nicolò, the brother-in-law of Pierino Magnano, was sent to take possession of the church of Soraggio in his name. The aforementioned Battistino, Donatello, and their companions, about twelve of them, were sent there and are still there now, all of them bandits and robbers. The area of Soraggio borders that of Reggio and one can go from Castelnuovo ne’ Monti near Reggio to there in little time. In my judgment Your Excellency needs to order the Captain of Reggio to send secretly his crossbowmen with a large number of infantrymen so that they arrive at the church at night. Doing this, they would catch them all successfully and this province would remain free. It would be good if the captain of the crossbowmen had an official letter of permission from Your Excellency so that he could give orders in the area if anyone moved against him. If they do not catch them, they could lay siege to the church, which they might have to do anyway. To this end I wrote to the Commissioner of Sestola so that he might send me up to thirty men. He cried off, saying that they were all occupied with the harvest, and further he tried to convince me not to take them because, being peasants, they are therefore no good. I also wrote to the Captain of Reggio but his delay in writing me makes me doubt that he is going to do anything for me. Now I appeal to Your Excellency and in gratitude I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 24 July 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 159 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto speaks up in favour of the inhabitants of Cardoso in Luccan territory.

212

Letters

Magnificent and Powerful Lords, Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Although in another of my letters I wrote to you the same thing, with this one I am again notifying Your Noble Lordships that I will not fail to satisfy those citizens of Cardoso concerning their goats. And I also will not fail to produce a judgment on the hay that these men from Vallico claim was taken from them. To Your Noble Lordships I commend myself. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 25 July 1524. Of Your Magnificent Lords Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Commissioner. Letter 160 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto updates Alfonso on the military situation in the Garfagnana. He reports on the ongoing process of restoring and staffing various fortified houses and castles around the valley.175

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Lord Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. Your letter of the twentyfirst of this month followed by the positive impact of sending the twenty-five men with muskets in addition to sending the castellan for the castles of Verrucole have been so appreciated by the good men and lovers of peace in this area that you can once again reckon to have acquired some very faithful subjects. At their arrival, all the bandits cleared out of the area and as long as your men stay here I do not believe anyone will hear anything about the bandits. I set up one group of musket men at Camporgiano, one at Castelnuovo, but I will not allow them to be stationary in either place because I would like them to patrol the area. And so yesterday I set out and led a group to Sassi to take care of that castle as Your Excellency commands me to do in your letter. I do not know if you recall this castle but you should know that it is a site much stronger than Verrucole and with much less security. Among others, Christophoro Casanuova could help give

213

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Your Excellency a picture of it because he has already seen it and has spoken about it with me. It is situated in an important location at the border between the Florentines and the Luccans and so near to Castelnuovo that if some need came up and there was someone living in the castle, the men from here would willingly leave behind their property and families, something the people in Barga and other places close by would not do, as shown recently. And because Your Excellency tells me to see to it that I take control of this castle and place in it a castellan who will answer to me, I am assuming that someone has told you that some bandit who is an enemy of Your Excellency is in there. The truth is that no one is in that castle, nor could anyone stay there, because it is completely open to the elements. It is true that, suspicious of these men, Casaia and some on the French side wary of the bandits on the Italian side who […] had got Pierino Magnano to come, withdrew to Sassi because the church in that area, connected to the castle, is in the hands of a certain Antonino, nephew of the late Ser Ferdiano, with the greater part of the area around Sassi belonging to the French. And for this reason, not only now but at other times, the bandits on the French side often start out from Sassi to the serious displeasure of the Italian side that would like the enemy not to take refuge anywhere. The bandits are not going out for a fight, since the Italians hold the castles of Ceserana and Sillico, which serve from there up to here as the eyes for Castelnuovo, to the consternation of the town because neither at Sassi nor along that road has anyone ever been assaulted. But Your Excellency has to remember what has happened on this other side. The poor men of Ceserana are still encumbered by the one hundred ducats that they paid the priest. In any case it would be good for a castellan to be housed at Sassi with his salary of eleven lire a month covered by the import and export tax of Castelnuovo. I believe that the position also receives a small amount from the sentencing fines. Perhaps one man with a servant would suffice to guard it in times of peace, and the bandits, knowing that there was someone there, would not come around Sassi. The priest himself, a nephew of Ser Ferdiano, and these men are pleading with me about it because the incursion of the bandits and their followers into that area is nothing if not harmful to them. But because they have helped

214

Letters

them out in the past when they were in need, they cannot deny them food and drink. Since Your Excellency writes me to place someone to watch over the castle according to our need as I see fit, I had thought to place there two of the musket men you sent. But seeing that there is no roof over the place, I let it go, and I called the men from Terre Nuove for a meeting tomorrow. These men are obliged to repair the castle’s roof because Your Excellency allows them half off the tax of their fines. I will see to it that immediately […] these people of Lord Giovannino […] Casaia and the priest Bartolomeo from Gragnanella and others on the French side, but I do not have any inkling or clue about that. And if Casaia and the priest really did leave and go to Sassi, the Captain of Justice testified that it was at his advice and commission. He did this because Pierino had invited the bandits and on the other side Casaia had got the foreigners of the other party to come. Since the captain feared that the one side and the other might attack each other because he saw clear signs of that possibility, he advised Casaia and the priest to leave quickly rather than risk the danger of turning everything upside down here. And so they did. Now Pierino as much as he can is labouring to show that the departure of these men has been an act of rebellion. When the captain of Lord Giovannino was wounded at Camporgiano, Pierino sent a number of his soldiers to get him in addition to the crossbowmen that I had sent. He wanted to have the captain taken to his house. Since I had the captain in the castle, every day Pierino came or sent someone to try and persuade him to pick up and go to Pierino’s house, where he would be better off. So much so that I had difficulty making this wounded man wait for Your Excellency’s answer on what to do with him. Pierino did all this because if he could have him in his house he hoped to be able to get him to say what he wanted him to say. Finally when I had Your Excellency’s response, I let him go. But first I persuaded him to take up lodging with the captain of the crossbowmen, since it is a place not partisan to one side or the other. But I doubt that the captain will survive. Although the doctor says that if he makes it through today, there is hope. And as much as Pierino labours to make it appear that Casaia is responsible for this situation, similarly Casaia tries to make me see that if I am suspicious of anyone being guilty, it

215

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

should be Pierino. And Casaia adds that when Pierino knew about them coming he sent out messengers to meet them, who sent […] to Scola, who is from Lunigiana, and two from this area, that is Barone and Gian Mancuccio, whom they met at San Donnino. The standard bearer of Lord Giovannino’s army, who is from Fivizzano and is a relative of Pierino Magnano, told Barone and his companions that they had told Pierino, for his part, to leave open the house that he has in the village because he had had it from the captain for his lodging and he would save it for him. And then when Lord Giovannino’s spokesman came to demand land, a relative of Pierino also from Fivizzano came with him and he spoke at length with another of Pierino’s relatives from Barga who was here. Then the one from Barga spoke with Pierino, who had food and drink delivered for six people. And then when these people withdrew to Camporgiano, there Pierino spoke at length with Captain Todeschino, who now is here wounded, and he spoke with some of his relatives who were in the field there. This is all true but I do not think that Pierino did anything with bad intentions. However, his enemies interpret his actions as if he were playing their game so that each side has something to say. Or so I understand the situation. I want Your Excellency also to know so that you can make the judgment you think best. And as I have done in the past, I am going to do for the future too: I will keep you notified of everything I hear and I will criticize as necessary either side according to how they behave. As long as I am in this office, I am only interested in one friend: justice. I thanked Pierino and the others as per Your Excellency’s orders, expressing your sincere appreciation and reading to them the parts of Your Excellency’s letter that pertain to them as I happened to have done already with another of your letters. I wrote to the Captain of Fivizzano and to those officials in Lunigiana and I published a proclamation to the effect that the citizens of Fivizzano and every other place can come safely into this province. I called a meeting with the men of the district around Castelnuovo, where I will speak about the situation with the Sillicagnans. And also I will raise in general the cost for these actions according to Your Excellency’s instructions. On Monday I will go do the same thing at Camporgiano, for on that day I have called those others to a meeting

216

Letters

where I will speak and I will strive to see that provisions are made for the castles of Verrucole. I will notify Your Excellency of what happens. In gratitude to you I commend myself in the meantime. Castelnuovo, the next to last day of July 1524. Just now two men have come from Lucca who say they are returning to Lunigiana and they report that the men of Lord Giovannino have captured a fortress called Bastia, which was believed to be impregnable because of the master craftsmen who built it. His men are with others and they have set up camp in another place called Monti del Marchese Spinetta. They say that having captured these places, they will go to Fosdinovo or they will return to the Garfagnana. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 161 to Alfonso d’Este Plans for manning a local castle.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Lord Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. As soon as I had concluded the letter attached here, I received one from Your Excellency of the twenty-fifth of this month with which you order me to […] Santo Iacomello in charge of the castle at Camporgiano. I will take care of this. I will go on Monday morning and put him in charge and see to everything else that you have commanded me to do. Then I will let you know how things have gone. There is nothing else to report. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, the next to last day of July 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 162 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto writes to tie up the affairs of the murdered Count San Donnino.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I have learned that at Gurfigliano Father Michele has some personal items

217

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

of Count Giovanni from San Donnino, dear to our hearts, who was robbed by that man, Giovanni Madalena. I beg Your Noble Lordships to sequester those items that the priest has for us to inventory. In this way we can be sure that no one will benefit from items that have been stolen and that whoever possesses them has them justly. In gratitude to Your Noble Lordships I commend myself. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, the first day of August 1524. Of Your Magnificent Lords Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 163 to Alfonso d’Este Ariosto provides Alfonso with an update on attempts to trap some of the bandits and the possible collaboration of locals with them. He recounts disputes with locals over who should pay for manning castles and watchtowers at three strategic points in the area and he concludes by suggesting that someone more competent could write a better report.

To My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord, My Outstanding Lord, Lord Duke of Ferrara, etc. In Ferrara. My Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord. I received Your Excellency’s notification that you had ordered the Captain of Reggio to send some men to Soraggio to catch those bandits in the church. In order to be close by to help out if needed, I positioned myself with the musket men near Camporgiano, where I immediately encountered someone who gave me a letter from Iacomo di Pasino, captain of the light cavalry from Reggio. In his letter he notified me that the evening before he had reached Soraggio and had discovered a son and grandson of Bastiano Coiaio with about ten other companions in the church. He caught them all and led them away toward Reggio. But the same messenger who gave me the letter said that when Iacomo di Pasino reached Soraggio, Battistino Magnano and Margutte da Camporgiano, bandits and public criminals, were with the others. However, because these two bandits were protected by the others who are not bandits, they managed to sneak away. And they had time to escape because they had seen the crossbowmen coming in the distance, since this

218

Letters

group arrived at Soraggio late in the afternoon. I was troubled that Iacomo was not clever enough to know to arrive later at night or at dawn so that he would not have been seen before he was on top of them. I do not know if he did this stupidly or, in fact, deliberately, because later I was told that Bastiano Coiaio’s wife is related to Iacomo. However it may be, I am very troubled that those two thugs got away. Donatello with another bandit named Venturello had just left a little earlier. I do not know what the captain in Reggio will do with these men who have been brought to him as prisoners. It would not be bad to give them a warning so that they prefer not to hang out with bandits. Whoever questions them may learn something from them about the way these thugs operate. Your Excellency will do whatever you think best. Last night I was at Verrucole and discovered that the castle was unbelievably uncomfortable. I told the castellan to send me […] that seems […] who will also be the bearer of this letter. I will not leave Camporgiano, where I am currently, before I outline for him everything that he needs to do. I have to work with bad peasants. Yesterday I called a meeting to see to it that they provide four guards every night at Verrucole. They responded that they did not want to do it because they did not have to. They added that they pay four bolognini per day for the castles and that it is your responsibility to have them guarded, not theirs. Nevertheless I persisted and convinced them with some difficulty after much talking that they should send two guards for fifteen days, or until such time that I could inform Your Excellency and get your response. As you know, the place is big, if you want to have fourteen men there, seven in each castle, with their salaries covered. Now that the number of guards has been reduced to five they will be difficult to protect, especially if a new war breaks out. But if we did not have to worry about the prospect of war, I believe the number we have would suffice. Nevertheless Bernardino da le Doccie is not very secure as long as these men under Lord Giovannino are in the Lunigiana, because if they left there in the evening they could be at Verrucole by dawn. For this reason he begged me to agree to give him two of the musket men next. I will take care of the most necessary tasks before I leave here, namely to wall up an unimportant gate, now broken and

219

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

ruined, which will make it more secure than if we made a new one, and to have the cistern repaired. I have convinced them to pay for this work. Concerning the rest, I will take a look at their official documents and whatever they are obliged to pay, I will make them pay. Your Excellency will be notified before there are any other expenses. I set up Santo Iacomello as castellan here in Camporgiano, which is also in bad shape. For this lookout, as for the others, I will consult the documents of the district. Spending a little would make this district very secure and if this castle were fortified I am sure that there would be no need for other fortresses or other expenditures around this area. I will place two soldiers there unless Your Excellency advises me otherwise. I do not know who else to put there because no one in the town would be any good nor would anybody want to be there unless they knew that the place had been fixed. Your Excellency has not given me any advice on this. Your Excellency writes to say that you will send a captain to Camporgiano but you have only sent the one for Verrucole. I do not know exactly how you made your calculation but speaking straightforwardly in my opinion it would be better to have a man in the castle at Camporgiano than at Verrucole. It would be more useful for the people here to have guards rather than in Verrucole, which is further away. Also, I think with very little expense one could fortify Camporgiano and make it much stronger than Verrucole, which is of much less strategic importance. But you should see to it as you please. Once these three castles – Verrucole, Camporgiano, and Sassi – are repaired and outfitted appropriately, it would be best to raze the others or tear them down enough so that bandits or our enemies cannot take lodging in them. The best thing for the peace of the land would be to protect these three. There is also the castle of Trassilico. If Your Excellency does not want to place any other men around here, it would not be a bad idea for the judge to be based there, since you think that a judge has to be in Trassilico. He would be safe there and it would prompt those men to repair the building and keep it in good shape, as they are obliged to do. But I hear that it is in such bad repair that it might be too late to try to fix it. If this is Your Excellency’s wish, I will go there or I will send someone to take a look at it. Concerning these castles, more than enough has been said.

220

Letters

Concerning what Your Excellency writes me about giving those bandits safe-conduct, since from the letter that arrived from these men […] was intended to beseech Your Excellency to take this province to heart and to provide it with the necessary provisions for its health. But Your Excellency should know that neither the town nor any respectable citizen was consulted on whether or not to ask for safe-conduct or pardon for Battistino Magnano, Donatello, Venturello, and certain other robbers who are awful. Rather Pierin Magnano, Maestro Zan Piero, and Acconcio, who have joined to form an alliance to control everything in their own way, with Ser Evangelista, who is now clerk to the town, wrote this letter to Your Excellency without inviting the participation or advice of anyone else. If these thugs were outlaws because of only one or two murders, Your Excellency might be able to grant the request of these few individuals, since the town is not requesting it. But as for pardoning public murderers and criminals who cannot survive without extorting money, Your Excellency should not do that even if the whole world begged you. The crossbowman sent here with the letter of testimony is an upstanding citizen and soldier but he is so much on the Italian side – his wife is a relative of Ser Evangelista – that I fear he has said more than was needed to Your Excellency in favour of one side and against the other. I especially fear that he has exaggerated the merits of these bandits: even if they have come to support this area, Your Excellency should not think it is because they feel any more warmly to it than do the others. They are here to defend the members of their faction, since they saw that the enemy came with Cornacchia, the sons of Pier Madalena, and the men from Pontecchio, that is Ulivo and his brother, who are the real enemies. Yet concerning this and the other topics, I submit myself to Your Excellency. There are other things that I will have delivered and related in person, since they are about our […] But if Your Excellency were to send someone else here more competent about these things than I am, you would be able to get a report on it worth consulting. Just now I learned that Captain Todeschino, who was wounded, has died. A man who was tending to him during his illness, whom I ordered to try as best he could to get out of the captain who sent him there, reported to me that he maintained firmly till his death that

221

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Lord Giovannino knew nothing about him being here. He claimed that the judge from Fivizzano got him to move into this area in the hopes that if things happened as he wished, then Lord Giovannino would have been happy to have the excuse that the men had called him here. I wrote Your Excellency that the castle, Bastia, was lost. Afterwards Lord Giovannino’s men took Monte di Simone, where they captured the Marquis Spinetta and his wife and children. Rumour has it that someone betrayed him. I am about to go to Fosdinovo, where the Marquis Lorenzo is preparing for a fight with help from San Georgio.176 There is nothing else to report. To Your Excellency I commend myself. Camporgiano, 2 August 1524. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 164 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto proposes a future exchange of captured bandits between his government and Lucca.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Yesterday at Careggine one of Your Lordships’ messengers delivered the letters in which you notify me that the cavalry and soldiers sent by the Governor of Reggio caught some bandits at Soraggio, Your Lordships’ territory. You asked me to inform the governor on the treaties and accords between Your Lordships and My Most Illustrious Lord. Always desiring to please and serve you, I used the same messenger to write to the governor in the appropriate form. I do not doubt that he will do the same as I have done in the past and always will do in the future, as long as it is correct that the men the governor’s captain led to Reggio are those bandits from Your Lordships’ territory. But in the list that the captain sent me when he left Soraggio, the man, Hieronimo, was not named. Still, if what the messenger sees can be trusted, I believe that the Governor of Reggio will show your messenger all these prisoners. In this way he may recognize the bandits from Lucca, if there are any. And if they are there and if the governor does not want to hand them over (which I doubt), I am going to write one hundred

222

Letters

letters, not just one, to My Most Illustrious Lord so that Your Lordships may know of his intentions. For the good will I bear toward you to be even better and for the duty I have always carried out and that I will always carry out for you, I truly beg you to do this for me in exchange: to work hard to catch and turn over to me Battistino Magnano da Castelnuovo and his companion, Margutte da Camporgiano. Both of them often hide away at Tramonte and in the area of Castiglione, camping out in the territory of Your Lordships. Your Lordships could succeed much more easily in catching them than I, since they are not suspicious of you whereas they look out vigilantly for me. This is especially the case now that My Lord has sent twenty-five musket men on foot in addition to the cavalrymen I normally have here. If Your Lordships grant me a favour of this sort, rest assured that what you have of the better part of me now you will have completely in the future. You will be able to count on me and this province for justice no less than My Most Illustrious Lord does. In gratitude to Your Noble Lordships I commend myself. Camporgiano, 5 August 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 165 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto confirms the reciprocal agreement about dealing with criminals on either side of the border.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords, etc. I have seen what Your Noble Lordships have written and I thank you for your good intentions. It is indeed true that I am asking you to give the same order that you gave the representative in Castiglione to the representatives of Borgo and Camaiore and other of your officials, namely that if it happens that any such men end up in their hands, they may find a way to hold them in prison. Concerning what Your Noble Lordships have written me about the orders given to your constable to go where necessary to find them, now My Most Illustrious Lord has graciously provided me with the forces so that, if they happen to come here, I will be able to detain

223

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

them. I spoke in person with your representative in Castiglione and discussed the plan in place so that we may realize this end. And to Your Lordships I continue to commend myself. From the castle of Camporgiano, 11th day of August 1524. Of Your Lordships Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 166 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs Ariosto revisits a dispute between citizens under his jurisdiction in Upper Vagli and Florentine citizens over stolen animals, making a plea for the value of justice.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence, etc. Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. The bearers of this letter, Barone and Corsetto from Upper Vagli, come to Your Lordships in the name of their community to inform you that certain animals were stolen from them by men from Capella in the district of Pietrasanta. You may perhaps have already been informed of this situation, since My Most Illustrious Lord wrote to Your Lordships about this last year when it happened. But perhaps he wrote to your predecessors, who, I believe, ordered that either the animals be returned to our citizens of Vagli or they be recompensed with cash. That order, however, was never carried out. But as for the cause of it, these men who come as messengers will inform you fully. I beg you to give them a good audience and to have faith that they will not present anything other than the truth. Then, as regards the disagreement that they have with the citizens from Capella over some of their fields, may that which has been agreed upon in the distant past (as is clear from the contracts between the two communities) and has been in use for a long time still stand. And may the words of the contract be interpreted fairly and without criticism so that they can live side by side in peace. I trust that in your kindness you will deign to listen to the arguments of our citizens and that you will not allow them to be treated aggressively by these men from Capella. Being under the protection and

224

Letters

favour of Your Lordships, they claim greater authority than I think you want them to have. Even if they are your subjects and you hold them dear, I do not believe that you hold justice less dear. I believe that your Captain of Pietrasanta will also write you about this case. He is well informed about the situation and I trust that in his prudence and goodness he will make a true report. In gratitude I commend myself to you always. Castelnuovo of the Garfagnana, 29 August 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto General Ducal Commissioner. Letter 167 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs Ariosto reports a recent crime by bandits from Barga.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence, etc. Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. I ordered the bearers of this letter, who for their business will have spoken with Your Lordships, to make you aware of an attack against a poor man from this province (following upon several other serious attacks carried out recently) by some thugs from Barga, in particular one named Matheo del Mazone. I beg Your Lordships that concerning this event you lend them credence as regards what I have said and then, once you have understood the situation, come to a decision that respects justice. I trust that you are about to act in such a way that these folks from Barga do not assume that they can hold this province hostage. In gratitude I commend myself to you always. Castelnuovo, 29 August 1524. I gathered information and I have learned that Moro del Pazaglia, Luchino di Paolo d’Ochi, Coietto, and others whose names I do not know were with Matheo. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto General Ducal Commissioner of the province of Garfagnana.

225

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 168 to the Elders of Lucca Another request, following letter 162, that the property of the murdered San Donnino family be turned over to the appropriate authorities.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords, Lords Most Worthy of Honour, etc. Recently I wrote to Your Lordships about certain items that are in care of Father Michele, rector in charge of your area around Gurfigliano. Those evil men who murdered that poor lady married to Count Gian Maria from San Donnino and her son stole them and took them there. And in your kindness Your Lordships used your letters to order that priest to keep the items and not give them to anyone without your permission. This is because that property, if it is the Count’s, belongs to the friars and nuns of Saint Francis as well as to a local church here, to whom it has been bequeathed. If it is material that belonged to the criminals, then it actually belongs to the Treasury of My Most Illustrious Lord. Because I know that those thugs are harassing the priest and would like to take the goods, and so that they cannot brag about having the items and killing people, and so that the property goes to the persons to whom it belongs, I beg Your Lordships for the sake of justice to order Your Magnificent Representative in Castiglione to send for the items in your name. Have them brought here to me and I will pay the shippers very well. And to Your Lordships I commend myself offering to do likewise, etc. Castelnuovo della Garfagnana, 7 September 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 169 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto approves of the military response taken by the Luccans against bandits.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me, etc. I was very happy when I saw Your Lordships’ men pass by here, all the more

226

Letters

so when I learned from your letters and a letter sent by Your Magnificent Commissioner from Castiglione that they have been dispatched here to squash the outlandish behaviour of some of your murderous subjects and of some of the men who live in this province too, since both sides have formed an alliance. I will stay connected with the commissioner of Your Lordships in person and in writing and I will not fail to do everything I can to see to it that violence does not prevail over justice. And Your Lordships should rest assured that you can depend on me no less than you would one of your most devoted servants because such is My Most Illustrious Lord’s desire as well as my own inclination given my reverence for you. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 19 September 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 170 to the Elders of Lucca Following letters 162 and 168, Ariosto again requests that the goods of the murdered San Donnino family be returned.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords, Lords Most Worthy of Honour, etc. In other letters that I wrote to Your Lordships a few days ago concerning those items that were taken at San Donnino by the men who murdered that poor wife of Count Giovanni and their son, whose personal effects were found in the rectory of the priest at Gurfigliano in your territory, Father Michele, I begged you to order Your Magnificent Commissioner in Castiglione to have those items brought to me with the assurance that I would pay for the shipping. Since it is material stolen in my area of jurisdiction, it belongs to friars, nuns, and one church there in San Donnino. The friars here have reported to me that you have told them you will respond to my request and that you want to hear the argument on behalf of the friars, nuns, and the church. Therefore with this letter I bear witness to Your Lordships that I saw the wills, that is of Count Carlo the elder and of Count Giovanni, his son, recently completed by each of them, although certain other of your citizens there who are of

227

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

the house of San Donnino showed me another will of Count Carlo, which was annulled and made void by his most recent will. Now I am sending Your Lordships the copy of the last will and testament of Count Giovanni, which makes clear that his personal property belongs to the church in question, as well as to the friars and nuns. In this way you may be certain that I am not petitioning Your Lordships without just and honest cause, since I know that justice and conscientiousness will prevent you from falling short before just requests. Thus I beg you again to order that I get those goods in the way that you deem best so that I can distribute them to the people to whom they belong. To you I commend and offer myself. Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 20 September 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner. Letter 171 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto recommends a Ferrarese acquaintance for a military post in Lucca.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me, etc. Hercole Saltarello, a noble gentleman from Ferrara, with his letters and with a messenger sent by post horses, begs me mightily to help him find a position with Your Lordships as a soldier, in charge of either light cavalrymen or infantrymen. In his communication he makes it clear that he believes Your Lordships will do much for me. Since I cannot deny my friends anything they ask of me, especially if they are respectable men, even if my request to you seems a bit rash, I would rather incur a debt of presumption with you than one of ingratitude with my friends and compatriots. May Your Lordships pardon me for appearing too bold and may you agree to accommodate this good man without causing problems for yourselves, and may you do it out of the goodness of your hearts more than for any merit of mine and for my love of you. I promise you that he will be most faithful. I know him to be worthy and decent, moreover I am sure that he

228

Letters

will bring honour to the one who will have commended him to Your Lordships. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 13 October 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 172 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto suggests strongly that an imprisoned man from the Garfagnana be released immediately to avoid raising the ire of Duke Alfonso.177

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me, etc. Many days and months have already passed since some men from Gello petitioned for one of our citizens from Fabbriche to be detained at Lucca. My Most Illustrious Lord wrote to Your Lordships about this, as you will be able to recall from the enclosed copy of his letter. Your Lordships agreed to have him released and that seemed to silence this disagreement, because from that time on there has been no talk of it. Now once again the men from lower Vallico are reporting that one of their men has been imprisoned at Borgo because the same sort of petitions made in the earlier case are being repeated. For this reason I thought to remind you in writing, rather than agreeing to their desire to seek reprisals against some of the subjects of Your Lordships, how much this situation is going to displease My Most Illustrious Lord when he hears about it. It seemed best to request and beg a favour of Your Lordships, to whom I am most devoted, namely that you order this subject of ours to be freed immediately and order the men from Gello to stop this practice. The way to interact with My Most Illustrious Lord is quietly and peacefully rather than to revisit this case again. Given what has already happened, His Excellency feels that he has suffered wrongly at the hands of your commissioner, who has not acted appropriately. For this reason I beg Your Lordships again to whom I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, last day of October 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto.

229

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 173 to the Elders of Lucca A note to say that Reggio and its citizens are free of the plague.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Having been sought out by some merchants from Reggio who would like to gain access to Lucca, I testify to Your Lordships that almost every day I have letters from the Captain of Reggio and my own friends who keep me apprised of everything that is happening around that area. I have not heard in writing or from people coming from there that there is any suspicion or danger of the plague at all. There is nothing else to report. To Your Lordships I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 8 November 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 174 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto is surprised to hear of a large group of French troops led by John Stuart, Duke of Albany, about to pass through the area.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I do not have any notification at all of the movements of the Duke of Albany from My Lord the Duke, nor from a commissioner of His Excellency who, I hear, is with the Duke of Albany. I am thoroughly amazed at this. I heard from the men of Sillano, both in writing and then in person from three men I sent via post, that last night two hours after sundown the Duke’s quartermaster arrived in Sillano and demanded supplies for fourteen thousand men, both cavalry and foot soldiers, and that tonight on the 30th of December they will arrive in Sillano. Now I am sending two other men to gather better information. To Your Lordships I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, the next to last day of December 1524. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto Ducal Commissioner.

230

Letters

Letter 175 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto pleads the case of two citizens who have been unfairly captured by soldiers in the Duke of Albany’s army.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Recently when the army of the Duke of Albany passed through this province, at Vitiana some soldiers happened to take one of our citizens who was following behind the army in order to make some money. Inasmuch as I can trust my sources, this fellow is a good young man. But those soldiers, either to rob him or because they were suspicious of him for some reason, grabbed him, as I said, and tied him up. They accused him of being one of the bandits from around here and they said that he was trailing along behind the army up to no good. And then it happened that when they got to Diecimo, one of his relatives, Christophoro di Luca da Dezza, met him and, recognizing who he was, helped and encouraged him to escape. I believe that the soldiers have reported to Your Lordships how they had Christophoro caught as if he had committed a huge crime in liberating this fellow. I testify to Your Lordships that this man who was first caught, Baptista di Giovanni Andrea da Saxi, comes from an excellent family. Everyone who knows him thinks that he is a respectable young man. He has never been convicted or sentenced for anything so that the other person who liberated him did not do anything terribly wrong. Wherefore I commend him to Your Lordships and I beg you that if you cannot consider it for any other reason, please agree to free him for love of me. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 13 January 1525. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 176 to the Eight on Foreign Affairs Ariosto asks that several bandits be handed over to him.

Magnificent and Noble Lords, My Most Worthy Lords, the Eight on Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Florence, etc.

231

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Magnificent and Noble Lords Most Worthy to me. I believe that Your Lordships are aware of a treaty that exists between you and My Most Illustrious Duke not to allow bandits from one of our sides to pass over to the land of the other. I have always completely observed this treaty in this province, having been ordered to do so by His Excellency, in whose name I notarized the official document. For I have always held the bandits from your Noble Republic in the same consideration as the bandits and rebels of the land of His Excellency. And the more it seems I do as I should, so much the greater am I saddened not seeing anything in exchange. It has already been some time since I lamented with Your Lordships that in Fivizzano and in the district of its captain’s jurisdiction, refuge was given to some bandits from here who attacked and murdered the son and mother of the Counts of San Donnino. Your Lordships responded to me that you had written about this to your commissioner in Fivizzano to tell him what to do. But since I did not know exactly what the order was and what you told him to do, I concluded that since he allowed such thugs to remain in your province that might have been what Your Lordships had in mind. And I refrained from answering further, convincing myself that you wanted it this way for a legitimate reason. I let it suffice to notify you. So I would like to do again right now: to notify you that a certain Bernardello da Pontecchio, an outlaw in this province for many murders, thefts, attacks, and assaults of all sorts, so many that this sheet of paper and ten more alike would not be enough to list them all, has taken refuge in Fivizzano. He cannot find a place to hide anywhere else (because there is no place around here where he has not committed some egregious crime). As I was told by someone who saw him in the market with two companions who are no better, one named Pellegrino, the other Raphaello, they must have safe-conduct from that local commissioner in order to be able to remain there so securely. I wanted to notify Your Lordships of this. If you do not agree to having them there and the accords and treaties are not being upheld, I beseech you please for the love of justice to order that these three infamous murderers be caught and to see to it that they are treated as they deserve, for I am sure that also in Your Lordships’ territory they have committed more than one notable crime. And if for some reason

232

Letters

you are prevented from doing this, at least order them to be sent away; do not allow such a plague to infect your land. If also for some reason (that I am unaware of) Your Lordships are content to let them have a place of refuge and favour, I will not oppose your wishes. It will suffice that I did not fail to notify you about the situation. And if indeed I am not given something in exchange for this duty and debt, it will still not prevent me from taking on what My Most Illustrious Lord imposes, namely to hold the bandits and rebels of Your Lordships as essential enemies of His Excellency. In this and in every other thing that I do, I am always trying to please Your Lordships. In gratitude I commend myself to you always. Castelnuovo, 17 January 1525. Of Your Noble Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto General Ducal Commissioner of the province of Garfagnana Letter 177 to the Elders of Lucca Resuming the narrative and petition of letter 175, Ariosto asks that two citizens imprisoned in Lucca be set free.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords, Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Given the office that I hold, Paulino da Molazana and Corbino da Colomini have appealed to me as their protector. They have asked me to beseech you and commend to you two men; one is the son of one of these, the other is the brother. You have these men in prison because when they were following behind the army of the Duke of Albany they participated in the divvying up of a certain amount of meat, about which you will be much better informed than I am. If their crime is small, as it seems from what these men relate, namely that they did not slaughter the animals but merely arrived after the fact and picked over the meat once the animals were killed, I commend them to you. All the more so if they are still soldiers in the company of Betto Cartolaro, as these men here tell me, for they would have then participated in the butchering more legitimately. So, with things as they are, I beg Your Lordships for the love of me not to let

233

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

them suffer any more than they deserve from their guilt. If they had been the first to commit this or any other crime, I would not be about to ask for anything on their behalf; on the contrary I would lament that there was no justice. In gratitude to Your Lordships I commend myself always. Castelnuovo, 18 January 1525. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 178 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto requests that several bandits be handed over to him.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords, Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Your Lordships will see from the letters enclosed here what the Captain of Reggio writes to you and similarly to me about those criminals caught by your constable. If the truth has been reported to the captain, as he writes, I beg Your Lordships, for the love of justice, please hand them over to us, for nothing would please My Most Illustrious Lord more. To you in gratitude I continually commend myself. Castelnuovo, 2 February 1525. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 179 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto tries to track down a murderer.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I am about to carry out what Your Lordships have asked me to do, namely to announce the bounty for Hieronimo da Castiglione as per your request. Nevertheless, since for the past several days the people’s captain in office here is engaging with various spies who are promising to hand him over, it seems right to me (if Your Lordships agree) to sit back somewhat and take a look at what this espionage might produce. Because if in the end the promises turn out to be empty, we can still

234

Letters

publicize the bounty. The aforementioned Hieronimo currently is not in our land as far as I have been told. This proclamation would put him on notice not to come into this ducal province under any pretence of security. But I turn myself over to your wiser opinion. To you in gratitude I continually commend myself. Castelnuovo, 12 February 1525. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 180 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto clarifies the legality of shipping chestnuts.178

Magnificent, etc. Some of our citizens from Careggine went to Borgo, where they bought two loads of chestnut flour to take home. They did not know that there was any law prohibiting it this year. They did not know because the harvest has been very good this year and they thought that things ought to be more relaxed than usual and because they could see that the subjects of Your Lordships are able to export whatever they like from this ducal province. While they were loading up their shipments and before they had even set out, some family members of the representative took their animals and loads, as if they had been caught doing something dishonest. I wanted to appeal to Your Lordships, since you have never denied me a favour that I have asked you, and beg you to have these goods returned to the poor men. Because in the first place I understand that for this year no prohibition at all was declared nor has there been anything else that might lead you to believe that items for personal use cannot be exported. Moreover these loads were confiscated before they even left the place. Yet if it appeared to have been an act of dishonesty, the man who is a subject of Your Lordships who sold them to people who cannot export them ought to be punished. He does not have the excuse that he did not know the rules, but our citizens from Careggine really do have that excuse. Since they are outsiders, they do not know how prices are set from time to time as necessary. In short, I beg Your Lordships to treat those citizens of My Most

235

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Illustrious Lord as well as I still treat your subjects. In gratitude to you I commend myself. Castelnuovo, 24 February 1525. Of Your Lordships Most Devoted Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 181 to the Elders of Lucca Again as in letter 142, Ariosto writes on behalf of a local citizen who petitions to ship chestnuts out of Luccan territory.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. I have written Your Lordships before to commend the bearer of this letter, Gimignano di Christoforo da Riccovolto, who lives in Coreglia, when he got into trouble for taking things out of the area under your jurisdiction. According to what he himself has told me, Your Lordships agreed to let him take the portion that belonged to you, for your love of me, as long as he could work it out with the customs officials. It seems that he could not even satisfy the customs officials because of his poverty and he was imprisoned again. Wherefore I beg Your Lordships to let him do now what for the love of me you and the magistrate let our citizen do earlier. I offer myself in these things and in others greater to the pleasure of Your Lordships. To you I always commend myself wholeheartedly. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, last day of March 1525. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Commissioner on site. Letter 182 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto promises to look after some Luccan citizens.

Magnificent, etc. I have seen how Your Lordships write me to commend Bartolomeo and Girolamo Mariani dal Borgo. Your Lordships know that you can give me orders as you see fit. I am not going to shirk my responsibility to lend favour to your subjects who are worthy, and

236

Letters

to do so promptly, as I am obliged to do out of my love for Your Lordships. To you I commend myself wholeheartedly. From the Castle of Castelnuovo, at the New Camps, 27 April in 1525. Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Commissioner on site. Letter 183 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto promises to punish some guilty criminals and asks again for the Luccans to treat Belgrado fairly.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. In these last couple of days I received two letters from Your Lordships, one dated on the 8th and the other on the 12th of this month, with which you notify me of the bad behaviour of the men from lower Vallico regarding your citizens in Coreglia and Motrone. I was very saddened but not surprised at the men from Vallico because recently they were emboldened to lay their hands on our crossbowmen who had gone there to carry out some orders. I am sure that My Lord will make an example of them, as His Excellency has already written me about it. I have ordered those men to be arraigned whose names Your Lordships sent me in a list. Today you sent me here two of your delegates to hear the case for which I will call them up. I told the accused men that I want them to appear in person. Whether they show up or not, I will prosecute them as fully as justice allows and will not hold back from doing all that I can to punish them if they have erred. Thus am I obligated by Your Lordships and by justice. Concerning what you write me about Belgrado, I would be very pleased if he were released from prison and for Your Lordships to take from him a bond that is appropriate to his status as a citizen among his peers because I do not see any way that he can pay bail of four or five hundred ducats. But he could pay a reasonable amount. And thus I commend him to Your Lordships, to whom I commend myself. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 14 May 1525. Of Your Lordships Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Commissioner.

237

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 184 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto requests help in seeing that a donkey is returned to the proper owner.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Bernardo Guassello da Castiglione, a subject of Your Lordships, has been here to see me. He claims that recently he was using a donkey to transport a load of baby goats to Lucca, which he had on loan from a widow of Ponticosi. The donkey was taken from him by some men from Aquilea who claimed that it was theirs. I believe that in the bishop’s court the decision was that the donkey did belong to the men from Aquilea. He says that the case is now before Your Lordships. Since I have spoken with those two people from Ponticosi and with others as well I have discovered the truth, which is that the donkey belonged to that widow and she loaned it to him. She bought it three years ago. I beg Your Lordships, even if this man really did not produce as many arguments as his adversaries did (because of the difficulty and expense), to follow the more worthy people. The people from Ponticosi are good and respectable and they would not say this if it were not the truth. They do not allow anything bad to happen to one of their own, which I am certain you will respect. In gratitude to you I commend myself. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 24 May 1525. Of Your Lordships Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Commissioner. Letter 185 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto asks that a militant and criminal priest be put in place and he proposes to broker a deal between two settlements on the border with Lucca.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Iacomo da Molazana is coming to see Your Lordships and he will outline for you the bad behaviour of the priest Martino da Vergemoli, especially

238

Letters

how he threatens to confront people at home with his men if he is not in agreement with them. And because I am sure that your Lordships love justice and you do not hold less dear the subjects of My Lord Duke than your own subjects, I beg you to take some steps so that Martino the priest is not able to stir up anything new. See to it that the bishop adjudicates between them rather than allowing them to resolve their differences with weapons. Otherwise much dissension could arise. Concerning the men from Vallico, in response to Your Lordships, I say that since the end of my term in office is nigh and that not eight or ten days will pass before I will come there in person, I will bring some of them with me to you. Before I leave Lucca, we will take the most expedient course of action in your opinion so that before I leave here an effective end can be worked out for Belgrado to be freed and for the inhabitants of Motrone and Vallico to remain good friends. And to Your Lordships I commend myself. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 29 May 1525. Of Your Lordships Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Commissioner. Letter 186 to the Elders of Lucca Ariosto reports a proposal on how the locals might pay for bail.

Magnificent and Powerful Lords Most Worthy of Honour to me. Although in another letter of mine I put off discussing with Your Lordships the case of Belgrado until I came there in person, the men from Vallico have come to see me. They tell me that at other times you have directed whoever is a guarantor of payments in your territory to come to Lucca and once there you rebuff them. Truly these men from Vallico do not trust their ability to find guarantors in your territory and they fear that if they enter into an agreement as the guarantor for Belgrado, Your Lordships will be displeased. But they have suggested another proposal to me: that the citizens from Motrone provide the guarantee in the territory of Your Lordships and those of Vallico in the area around here, good and sufficient, and further that each bond

239

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

be formalized officially. On this Your Lordships may notify me of your opinion because twelve or fifteen days could pass before I am able to come there. I would be happier to come with things resolved rather than confused. And to Your Lordships I commend myself. From Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, 30 May 1525. Of Your Lordships Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto Commissioner.

240

The third group of letters, 187–214, contains several important statements on Ariosto’s literary production, including the famous letter to Pietro Bembo (letter 190) in which the poet announces his third edition of the Furioso and asks for the literary arbiter’s help with the final linguistic revisions of it. There are several letters pertaining to the copyright and privileges of the poem’s third edition and several that deal with Ariosto’s theatrical writings. We learn that both Mantua and Urbino were sites interested in the production of Ariosto’s plays. Another group of the final letters focuses on the upcoming wedding of one of his wife Alessandra’s family members from her previous marriage in the Strozzi family. These provide interesting details on the bride’s wedding gown and veil as well as on some of the legal complications involved in preparing for a marriage in the extended family. Several of these letters are ghostwritten for Alessandra and in one of them (letter 205), Ariosto signs off as ‘her secretary.’

This page intentionally left blank

Letter 187 to the Doge of Venice, Andrea Gritti The poet asks to renew privileges and copyright connected with the reprinting of the Furioso in its third edition, to come out in 1532. He refers and to some extent rewrites the previous letter with which he made his original request to the Venetian authorities (letter 16). In a letter to the Luccan Lords, he claims not to keep copies of these missives (letter 89), but he obviously felt differently about his first letter to the Doge of Venice. This request was granted for ten years.

To My Most Noble and Serene Prince and Lord. In 1515 on the 25th day of October, I, your most devoted servant, Ludovico Ariosto, Ferrarese nobleman and member of the court of the Noble Lord Duke of Ferrara, having already composed some years before through my long vigils and labours for the delight and enjoyment of lords and persons of gentle spirit a work of pleasurable and delightful things, of arms and love, called Orlando Furioso, and desiring back then to bring it to light for the amusement and pleasure of everyone, beseeched Your Serenity to grant me the privilege, which I obtained from you and your authorizing body immediately, to protect me so that no person, neither local nor foreign of whatever rank, might dare or presume throughout the lands and places of the dominion of Your Highness to print or have someone else print my work in any form – not in large format, small, or very small. Nor could anyone sell or have sold my work under question without a clear licence and permission requested from me, the author of the work, under penalty of forfeiting all the works discovered to have been printed and a fine of one thousand ducats for each copy printed or sold, half of which penalty to be directed as Your Highness pleased, the other half with the printed or sold copies to be given to me, the aforesaid Ludovico. And because by new law Your Serenity mandated that such privileges did not have legal value unless they had been passed by the senate, many people have reprinted this work of mine in editions full of errors. It has been necessary for me to work hard to correct it, cleaning it up some more and reshaping it in many places. Since I want to publish it now with these new corrections, I beseech Your

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Highness to confer upon me again the same privilege you granted me in 1515 on the 25th of October, as I said above. Please grant me again, concerning this work of mine corrected and emended as it is, that no one, neither local nor foreign of whatever rank, presume to print it or have it printed, nor sell it or have it sold with these new corrections, in the lands, places, and dominion of Your Most Illustrious Lordship while I am living without my clear licence and permission under penalty as specified above in the privilege Your Serenity and your aforesaid authorizing body granted me in 1515. In gratitude to you humbly I commend myself. On this day [7 January 1528] Letter 188 to Biagio Pallai179 Ariosto writes to one of Pope Clement VII’s secretaries, an Estense contact in the Vatican, and indirectly refers to arrangements for a benefice most likely for his son, Virginio.180

My Reverend Biagio Most Worthy of Honour. I fear that if certain needs did not make me harass Your Lordship every now and then, you would forget about me. For this reason I would like to do some business at the papal court so that by appealing to Your Lordship and by bothering you, you will not forget to remember me and our mutual friendship will not be diminished. Months and days have passed since I last heard from Your Lordship and in the meantime many things have happened here and there. Just recently someone told me that Your Lordship is healthy and in good shape, which pleased me immensely. But I will be even more pleased and happy when I have that confirmed by you in writing. I, thanks be to God, am healthy and very rested. It is true that I have been bothered somewhat in some bad dealings regarding the settlement of issues in papal proclamations, about which I will write at length to Messer Giuliano Nasello.181 May Your Lordship please talk to him for love of me. Where you can intervene to my benefit, please do for me now

244

Letters

what you have done in the past when I needed your help. To you I offer and commend myself always. Ferrara. 26 July 1530. Always of Your Lordship Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 189 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi The first of a clutch of letters from Alessandra, Ariosto’s wife, to a relative by her previous marriage to Tito di Lionardo Strozzi (not to be confused with the poet Tito Vespasiano Strozzi), over arrangements for his possible marriage to the daughter of another Strozzi relative, Guido (younger brother of Ariosto’s dear friend Ercole Strozzi, murdered in 1508). At issue here is whether or not Guido will give his daughter Elena (never named) in marriage to Giovan Francesco, and then whether or not the latter will accept his terms and do so quickly enough. Some of the following letters are sent in Alessandra’s name, others in Ariosto’s.182

Magnificent Giovan Francesco Strozzi, My Most Worthy of Honour, etc. In Padua. My Magnificent Giovan Francesco Worthy of Honour. I just received today a letter from Your Lordship, which is dear to me because it brings me your news, not that I think you sent it to solicit anything from me or to remind me of your situation. I do not take it any less to heart than if it were especially for my own great benefit. I never lose an occasion to talk about your situation and always do so with that great trust I owe you. But concerning this situation, we cannot pressure Messer Guido any more than we already have.183 He does not want there to be any talk at all of arranging a marriage for his youngest daughter until he has completely concluded the financial arrangements of those other daughters whom he has already betrothed. Nor does he want to do anything else until he finds a place for Isabella in a convent. The plans for the youngest daughter184 were supposed to have happened by this last All Saints’ Day. The dowry and household accoutrements she needs are all in order but from the time of the

245

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

betrothal till now she has been continuously ill, frequently on the verge of death. In any case her ill health is the main reason why things cannot proceed. I assure you that Messer Guido has no plans with the Florentine Strozzi and in certain instances he is so disgusted with them that he cannot bear to hear them mentioned. This is as much as I can relate. I am hopeful and my hopefulness I pass on to you. I remain healthy, thanks be to God. Messer Guido and Count Lorenzo are aggressively disputing over that piece of the family’s property that the writer of this letter says he spoke to you about in Venice. He is doing well too and he commends himself to Your Lordship and he will not fail to express his indebtedness whenever he has the chance. There is nothing else happening. To Your Lordship I commend myself and I thank you for what you wrote me about my Tito.185 From Ferrara, 22 January 1531. Of Your Lordship Alessandra Strozza. Letter 190 to Monsignor Pietro Bembo Ariosto asks Bembo to look after his son, a law student in Padua, and states that he hopes to show the most recent revisions of the Furioso to him soon. In Furioso 46.15, Ariosto lauds Bembo for having purified the Italian vernacular, and there is much evidence throughout his writing, even in these letters, that Ariosto followed Bembo’s strictures on the language, albeit somewhat inconsistently. This letter complements Ariosto’s Satire 6.

To the Most Reverend Monsignor Pietro Bembo. Magnificent and Most Reverend Messer Pietro, My Benefactor Most Worthy of Honour. My son Virginio is coming to study in Padua. I have recommended that the first thing he do is come and pay his respects to Your Lordship and that he be willing to be recognized as your servant. I beg Your Lordship to extend him the favour of your help wherever he may need it and to warn him and exhort him not to waste his time. To you I offer and commend myself always.

246

Letters

I am about to finish revising my Furioso. After I have finished, I will come to Padua to confer with Your Lordship in order to learn from you what I am not likely to know on my own. May God preserve you always. Ferrara, on the 23rd February 1531. Of Your Lordship Your Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 191 to Nicolò Tassone da Este Ariosto writes the Este ambassador in Milan to ask for help in obtaining copyright and printing privileges in Milanese territory.

To the Most Illustrious and Magnificent Count Nicolò Tassone da Este, Ducal Ambassador to the Court of the Most Illustrious Duke of Milan, greatly Worthy of Honour. My Most Honourable Lord Count. Your Lordship will not be upset if I bother you because your kindness toward me might embolden me to trouble you about things much greater than this in my confidence that you would do it no less willingly for me than I would be pleased for you to do so. I would like to print my Orlando Furioso again so that I can emend many errors that the printers have caused in addition to those that my lack of diligence also brought about. I have also made some additions that I hope will not displease whoever may read them. And to be certain that printers do not print it against my will, before printing it I have obtained from almost all the governments in Italy the following right: that as long as I am alive no one may print it without my permission. I would also like to obtain the same privilege from the Most Illustrious Lord Duke of Milan,186 so I beg Your Lordship please to make a formal request for me for this favour from His Excellency. And so that you are aware of what I would like, I am enclosing herewith a copy of the letter that the Lord Duke of Mantua sent to me concerning this. I beg you heartily to see to this and I beg you to commend me in gratitude to Lord Count Massimiliano.187 Ferrara. 19 June 1531. Of Your Lordship Ludovico Ariosto.

247

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 192 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi Wedding plans for Giovan Francesco and Guido’s daughter; Ariosto, unnamed, falls ill in Padua.

Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, like a Brother Most Worthy of Honour, etc. In Padua. My Most Magnificent Messer Zan Francesco Worthy of Honour. This letter responds to three of yours, which, except for one that I wrote when we were staying in the country, I could not respond to before now because upon my return I have not stopped moving but have been going back and forth like a servant in the kitchen. In regard to your first letter in which you commissioned me to have those scarves made,188 I could not satisfy the request because I received it while I was on my way to the country. Since I was not here in Ferrara, it would not have done much good for me to write to you. But as soon as I returned I took care of it for you and I will send you the first piece that happens to be satisfactory. I had also ordered the veil for Madonna Lucretia,189 but Lord Alessandro’s clerk told me that Your Lordship said not to get it. I will hold that money for the scarves. The same man who gave Your Lordship’s letter to Captain Battistino also gave it to Count Lorenzo. I hear that Count Lorenzo is saying that he did not receive it but you should know that that is a big lie. I heard about the wedding that your family celebrated, which made me as happy as any other thing that I have heard. May God bless and make them fortunate; may He see to it that before too long I hear about the wedding of Lady Lucretia and your own wedding. Regarding your complaint about the writer of this letter who was sick in Padua, about whom you had no information, Your Lordship should know that when the fever first struck him at the baths, the knight from the Obizzo family was there. The knight begged him to stay in Padua until he was well. He so convinced him that he decided not to come home to Ferrara as he had first intended but to stay in Padua instead, where he contracted another fever, tertian malaria, in fact. Once his condition improved, he planned to spend a day or two in Padua, where he intended to pay a visit to Your Lordship and his other friends. But the Lord Duke

248

Letters

arrived and took him to Venice even though he was still weak and not completely well. Thus he did not have the time to do what he was supposed to do. However, Your Lordship should excuse him. Next time he comes to Padua, he will visit you. Where now he may seem to have fallen short, he would like to commend himself and offer his service to you. Let me add to what I wrote you from the country and say that I am eternally grateful for the linen. I will enjoy it because it shows your love for me, even though what Your Lordship gave me last year is already enough. So it seems to me that you want to become my feudal lord and I commend myself to you always. I beg you please to embrace Your Magnificent mother for me, 190 and do the same to each of your sisters endlessly. If I can be of any service to them, without a second thought they should ask me, since I have much pleasure and desire to please them in some way. Ferrara, 26 October 1531. Of Your Lordship Alessandra Strozza. Letter 193 to Federico Gonzaga Ariosto asks for permission to have paper for printing the Furioso shipped across Gonzaga territory as he points out he did once before (in letter 15).

To My Illustrious and Noble Lord, Lord Most Worthy of Honour, Duke of Mantua, etc. My Most Illustrious and Noble Lord, Most Worthy of Honour. I am on the verge of sending my Orlando Furioso to the press again and for this reason I need to have four hundred reams of paper shipped from Salò. I beseech Your Excellency to agree to allow it to be transported across your territory freely without payment of any customs fee, just as your father, the Marquis, dear to our memory, allowed me to ship up to one thousand reams (but I only had two hundred shipped). And because I do not believe that Your Excellency will consider me any less your servant than your father did, with no less trust I appeal to you beseeching that you grant me this favour, not only this time but any

249

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

other time that I need to print. While now I have added around four hundred stanzas to the book, I hope to add many more in other additions to come.191 And as I have praised the name of Your Excellency in this addition,192 I am not going to fail to do so in subsequent ones. I also have in mind to print some other little things of mine193 and I do not want you to consider me obtrusive and indiscreet if, whenever I need paper, I ask you for free transport across your territories. In gratitude to you humbly I commend myself always. Ferrara, 15 January 1532. Of Your Excellency Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 194 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi A clarification on part of the dowry, specifically on property that Giovan Francesco had hoped to gain. A note on the negotiations with a Jewish merchant to buy two scarves that Alessandra commissioned. 194

To Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, like a Brother Worthy of Honour, etc. In Padua. Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco. Your Lordship will learn from the letter of Friar Gasparo how he came to Ferrara in vain. This was the fault of the bearer of the letters, who did not speak to me when he passed by here; he delivered the letters to my house and he took away the document, which I subsequently received today from Friar Gasparo himself, so that I could not show it to anyone before. I need to hold on to it to be able to do what is required. I will take good care of it, not any less than Your Magnificent father would have done, and I will remit it carefully or I will do with it as you instruct me. I did not want to speak with the Magnificent Messer Guido about the Quartesana properties without first informing you that he does not own the property you would like. He had to sell it immediately after the death of Madonna Leona195 to use it for returning the value of dowries to her heirs. The only thing he still has is one large beautiful piece of land in the Quartesana, worth perhaps eight or ten thousand ducats. I believe he would rather give his wife away than that property

250

Letters

because it is the only one he possesses in addition to the land beside his handsome house.196 Of those properties where they spend holidays in Recano, you do not have correct information about the harvests. The workers are required to ship everything to Ferrara. It is true that twice the Po flooded the area but God only knows if this will happen again. Those floods were caused by the Mantuans who broke their dikes, a situation that the Venetian Lords and Our Duke will have to take care of, I think, in one way or another, so that they do not do it again. This and other details will be dealt with when we do what absolutely has  to be done upon the return of Madonna Simona197 and Friar Gasparo (since he has to come back one more time). Madonna Alessandra commends herself to Your Lordship and your sister and with this messenger sends two scarves, which she had made just for you. For them together she paid one gold scudo, but only with much negotiation and bickering because the Jew who made it wanted four lire; however, finally he agreed to accept her price. She offers to be of service however possible and prays that you request her service. To Your Lordship and to Your Magnificent mother and sister, she commends herself. As do I. Ferrara, 19 January 1532. Of Your Lordship Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 195 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi Bonaventura Pistofilo, Ducal Secretary and Strozzi’s brother-in-law, will mediate the details of an unspecified document, which may have to do with the dowry. More on the rising costs of fabric and labour.

To Giovan Francesco Strozzi. In Padua. My Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco, Worthy of Honour. I showed your document to the Magnificent Messer Bonaventura, who told me that it was not necessary to have it confirmed again because it is valid as is. In fact, there are many similar documents that are equally good and legitimate. Just today I talked with the Magnificent Messer Guido, who told me that he wanted to see it again, and so I will show it to him. I still find him more willing than ever. Afterwards I also

251

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

spoke again with Messer Bonaventura about this arrangement of ours and he was very pleased. He promised that he would talk about it with Madonna Simona when she returns from Modena, where she went to attend to her daughter who is expecting. Acting as he will and being a person who can have a huge influence on her, I do not think that it will be necessary to bother Friar Gasparo to return here. When she is back and we have done what is needed, I will let you know. Madonna Alessandra commends herself to Your Lordship and she says that she received a scudo. She believes that she has already informed you in a previous letter that she bought those two scarves for one scudo. She received fifty bolognini from the Fregosi’s clerk and thirty for the lady’s veil – which had not been purchased, it seems – which all add up, not counting the scudo, to four lire. The first scarves cost three and a half lire together so that she still has ten bolognini. When you happen to need something else from us here, we will put that money to good use. She informs me that, just as the price for other things goes up around here every day, so these Jews continue to raise the price for their work. If she did not inform you of the price of the first scarves, she says for you not to hold back from ordering or commanding her to get more because it was not such a large sum of money even if you had not sent the reimbursement. And if you do not want her to be at your service – you, your sister, and your entire house – she will fear that you do not love her. To you she commends herself always, as do I. Ferrara, 30 January 1532. Of Your Lordship Always Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 196 to Federico Gonzaga Ariosto is grateful for permission to ship paper across Gonzaga territory as he had asked in letter 193.

To My Illustrious and Noble Lord, Lord Most Worthy of Honour, Duke of Mantua, etc. My Most Illustrious and Noble Lord, Most Worthy of Honour. I call myself perpetually obliged to Your Excellency for what you have

252

Letters

granted me, namely, to allow my paper to pass through your territory free of any customs charge. But I am even more indebted to you because I read in your letters with how much good will you granted my request. It gives me hope of even greater concessions should I need them. I will try not to appear ungrateful for such kindness; moreover in this little bit of an addition that I am about to make to my Orlando Furioso, Your Excellency will be able to see that I have spoken of you in an honourable way. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Ferrara, 17 February 1532. Of Your Excellency Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 197 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi Notification that a sealed letter has been opened en route. Alessandra is working behind the scenes to ensure that Giovan Francesco receives as good a dowry as possible from Guido.

To Giovan Francesco Strozzi. In Padua. My Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco, Worthy of Honour. Like Messer Guido and Madonna Alessandra, I was very upset about the letter that was opened. We will be much more diligent in the future so that it does not happen again. Our friend has not yet returned from the place where he went but we will still wait a bit longer. As soon as he has returned I will do what I promised Your Lordship in my other letter. Concerning the names of the workers, one is Pier Antonio Tomi and the other is Santo Zago. Madonna Alessandra tells me that you should not depend on these properties because Messer Guido has let it be known that he will have to use the deeds to them in negotiation, since he does not have anything else that you might accept. As long as you see to it that our friend is happy, you do not have to worry about anything else. I will say no more. I offer my service and commend myself with Madonna Alessandra to Your Lordship. Ferrara, 20 February 1532. Of Your Lordship Always Ludovico Ariosto.

253

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 198 to Giovan Iacomo Calandra Ariosto sends his friend, Secretary to the Duke of Mantua, four of his comedies, asking that he share them with the Duke.

To My Most Magnificent Giovan Iacomo Calandra, Most Worthy of Honour, etc. In Mantua. My Most Magnificent Giovan Iacomo Worthy of Honour. I am sending with the bearer of Your Lordship’s letter four comedies, that is, as many as I have composed thus far. May you be pleased to give them to the Most Illustrious Lord, the Duke, as a gift from me. If I finish another one, which I began many years ago and which I have worked on up to a point but then set aside for other concerns, I will make a copy for Your Excellency.198 Right now I am so caught up in sending my Furioso once again to the printer with a bit of an addition that I cannot attend to anything else. If you find some mistakes in these comedies regarding the correct usage of language, I beg forgiveness. Even though I have read them, I have not had time to correct them. In addition to what I will write to the Lord Duke, may Your Lordship beg him on my behalf to prevent the negligence of anyone who has copies of the plays from allowing their reprinting, as has happened in the past to my great displeasure.199 And to Your Lordship I offer and commend myself. Ferrara, 18 March 1532. Of Your Lordship Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 199 to Federico Gonzaga Ariosto sends four of his comedies to the Duke of Mantua. He is concerned about their linguistic polish but he does not have time to revise them because he is ‘busy with something else,’ i.e., preparing the Furioso for the press.

To My Illustrious and Noble Lord, Lord Most Worthy of Honour, Duke of Mantua, etc.

254

Letters

My Most Illustrious and Noble Lord, Most Worthy of Honour. By this nobleman in your service who has come here, I am sending to Your Excellency all the comedies that I have composed up to now, four of them, as I promised I would do in a letter to Braghino. I do this also in response to the recent request made on your behalf by Giovan Iacomo Calandra. Two of the plays are ones that I believe you have never seen.200 The others, even though they are circulating in print – the fault of people who stole them from me – are not in the form in which I presented them, especially The Coffer, which has been almost completely redone. If they give Your Excellency pleasure, I will be most happy. I beseech you please not to let them loose so that they are printed yet again because in addition to the fact that I do not believe that they will be printed any more correctly than they were at other times, I recognize in them certain linguistic errors that I have not had time to correct, since I am busy with something else. Moreover, whoever transcribed them did not use that diligence that I would have used. And in order for Your Excellency’s servant not to come home empty-handed, I do not have time to revise them now. I would rather you have them now not so well written than to delay and raise the suspicion that I am less ready to serve you than is my duty. In gratitude to you I give and commend myself always. Ferrara, 18 March 1532. Of Your Excellency Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 200 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi After expressing condolences on the death of Giovanni’s father, Carlo Strozzi, Ariosto voices frustration with Guido’s stubbornness. Because at least one letter had been opened inappropriately, Ariosto wrote this letter and others with some degree of elusiveness, sounding even cryptic at times.201

To Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, Worthy of Honour, etc. In Padua.

255

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

My Magnificent One, Worthy of Honour. I have received your letter from the messenger of Your Lordship that reports the death of Your Magnificent father. The news saddens me because I share in every pleasure and displeasure of Your Lordship as one friend should do for another. But these things happen to everyone with such regularity that there is nothing that anyone can say other than to comfort you to accept God’s will and be patient. Concerning the other situation, I have already spoken (as I wrote to Your Lordship) with Messer Bonaventura and I gathered that it would produce the same effect as our plan that the friar would have to carry out. In any case I have not yet seen to it. I will be there at his side and I will see that he does what he is supposed to do. I talked to our friend again and tried to resolve the problem but he is so slow in everything he does that it is impossible to get a firm resolution out of him. Now he is more indecisive than usual and in a very bad mood because the better part of his land is under water.202 He is afraid that the money he will make will not even suffice to cover his costs at home because, as you know, he has significant expenses. In any case God knows that neither Madonna A. nor I are neglecting our noble duty; we are wrestling with him because of our love for you, but you cannot get from people what they do not want you to have. Your document is safe. As I believe I wrote to you, I spoke with Messer Bonaventura about it. He told me that since it contained the clause, ‘for him, his children, and his descendants,’ there was no need for any other emendation. But there was not time to get him to look at it because Our Duke was ill for several days and because other duties prevented him from doing so. But I will get him to have a look and I will urge him to seek out this other result although he has not been able to up to now because his friend’s daughter, who was married in our territory, is recovering from childbirth with her mother continuously at her house. We have not failed up to now to do our duty nor will we, although I have not written to tell you otherwise. Once we have spoken to the woman as soon as she is so disposed, everything else will be easy. And you will be informed immediately. If it seems that things are dragging on, then you can see how things are as far as you are concerned. Nothing

256

Letters

else is happening. I offer and commend myself to you always, as does Madonna A. Ferrara, 29 March 1532. Of Your Lordship Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 201 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi In more veiled language Ariosto reports that Guido, whom he refers to as ‘our friend,’ has finally accepted the terms of the dowry.

To Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, like unto a Son, Worthy of Honour, etc. In Padua. My Magnificent Messer Zan Francesco, Worthy of Honour. In another letter I expressed some doubt about our plan. Because I would not like that letter to leave you discouraged and to prompt you to undertake something new, with this letter I pass on that the outlook is promising. In fact, our friend has spoken with his wife, who has responded that he should do as he pleases, and the friend on his own has spoken with me. He is completely willing to work with you as long as we stick to the conditions already discussed. That is, that for now he does not have to bear any other expense because, as I have written, he is half ruined by flooding and he will have a hard time supporting his family this year. He will turn over the property with which you are familiar for your benefit, with the reservation that if it is flooded you should do as I have written in previous letters, that is, you have to loan him the means to fix it, etc., and he will be indebted to you. I have written you this in a hurry; later on I will tell you with more leisure the reasons that had made him seem hesitant. To Your Lordship I commend myself. Ferrara, 5 April 1532. Perhaps I will write you in several days to come here and without friars as intermediaries we will negotiate and conclude our dealings. I have to pass on some news. When that family member of yours who is involved in litigation against the family heard about the death of your

257

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

father, he wanted to intervene and put himself in the middle of the negotiations but we would have none of it. Madonna Alessandra commends herself to you. Yours, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 202 to Federico Gonzaga Ariosto apologizes for having written his plays in verse and thanks the Duke for returning them to him.203

To My Most Illustrious and Noble Lord, Most Esteemed Lord Duke of Mantua, etc. My Most Illustrious, Noble, Esteemed Lord. I am sorry that my comedies did not satisfy Your Excellency because they are written in verse. I thought that they were better in that form than in prose. But everyone is entitled to his opinion. I composed the two most recent ones from the start in verse and I regret not having also done them in prose to be able to satisfy you. May you please agree to accept my good intentions. I express my gratitude to you for having sent them back to me immediately (since they do not suit you). In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Ferrara, 5 April 1532. Of Your Excellency Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 203 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi Ariosto reports that Guido is sick and might die, but Alessandra thinks otherwise.204

To My Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, Worthy of Honour, etc. In Villabona. Pay the bearer, Darcallo. My Magnificent One, Worthy of Honour. At the present I am staying with Madonna Alessandra in her house, where one of your messengers has arrived with a letter.205 It arrived at the right time because I needed to write you and I did not know how to send you the letter. Not yesterday

258

Letters

but the day before, Messer Guido caught a fever, which returned to him today on the third day. He seems to be in something of a panic even though the doctors say that the illness is not dangerous. He says that tomorrow he wants to make his final confession and put his affairs in order, both body and soul. When I went to visit him today, he asked me (no one was there but the two of us) to write you to come here because he wants to be able to tie up what has to be done. I then went from his house to Madonna Alessandra’s to discuss your possible visit with her and she is of the opinion that you do not have to rush here so quickly. She believes your visit would be messy and cause a stir, since that savage beast has yet to be placated.206 I really hoped your messenger would wait here the whole day tomorrow so that I could talk again with Messer Guido once his fever subsided to determine more clearly what he will do when you are here. But since the messenger wanted to leave, I did not want him to go without this letter of mine. Both Madonna Alessandra and I think that you should not come upon receiving this letter, that you should not fly up here because you might have to leave without concluding anything. But if you could send one of your messengers immediately, I could give you a more developed response on what Messer Guido resolves to do, since I will have spoken to him (assuming that he is not as sick as he is today). But I submit myself to you for you to do what you deem best. I have not done anything about the house because up to now I have not been able to find one. The Trotti family says that they want to sell rather than rent their place. I am not going to spend much time looking for one. Madonna Alessandra will see to your requests but not all of them. I offer and commend myself to you. Ferrara, 21 June 1532. Yours, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 204 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi More on Guido’s condition and the vagaries of getting accurate news in a timely way.

To My Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, like a Brother, Worthy of Honour, etc. In Villabona.

259

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

My Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco, Worthy of Honour. Having received a letter of yours recently, I immediately answered it, even though it was directed to Madonna Alessandra, in the hopes of being able to send my response back with the messenger who brought us yours. He promised to come and pick it up in the morning but then he did not show up so that the letter sat here for more than three days after it was finished. Finally I sent it to Lendenara by way of one Hercule Malmignatto in the hopes that he would have it delivered to you. Perhaps you already have it by now or perhaps not. If by chance it has gone astray, it seems like a good idea to repeat the information for you in this letter, which the overseer who works for Messer Guido at Recano has promised to send by a courier. You therefore should know, if you have not heard already, that when your letter arrived, Messer Guido was sick with a very high fever. When I went to visit him, he told me to write you to come immediately to conclude what had been agreed between you two. Then when his fever subsided and he was getting back to normal, he told Madonna Alessandra to write you again and tell you not to come in a hurry. Instead he said that it would be good for you to send one of your messengers here, who, if Messer Guido took a turn for the worse, could immediately come to report the news to you so that you could drop everything and come. Thus she wrote you in her own hand and included a lock of her hair as further proof. Now you should know that Messer Guido is doing very well with one of the febrile bouts having subsided. We are hopeful that the fever will pass completely. For this reason you do not have to hurry here for now; rather you should organize your things to be able to come quickly when needed. Indeed Madonna Alessandra and I with her urge you to settle things as quickly as possible and that you come then so that nothing else arises to cause you any harm. Nothing else is happening here. Madonna Alessandra and I commend ourselves to you. If you received the letter in her hand, you have heard about that dress and other things she wrote. If you did not receive it, we will repeat it for you another time. Ferrara, 28 June 1532. Yours, Ludovico Ariosto.

260

Letters

Letter 205 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi More on Guido’s condition and the wedding plans. Alessandra details the dresses of the wedding party.207

To My Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, Worthy of Honour, etc. In Villabona. Magnificent Messer Zan Francesco. Today we received one of your letters from the fourth of this month. First, it is not necessary to make any other excuses for our not having written you sooner. We wanted to get your letter first, which in any case we expected to receive today, and whether we had got it or not, we were going to write you tomorrow, sending the letter by boat. You will know that your Magnificent father-in-law208 has not had a fever for five days but he is so weak that it does not seem he can recuperate. If bad luck struck him and he fell to the fever again I would have little hope for his chances. For this reason I urge you to hurry up as best you can to conclude your affairs so that at least by the end of August you are here and everything has been well settled. Messer Bonaventura said to me this morning that any day now he expects the disbursement for the wedding. So, if you have things in order at your end, there will be little delay for the disbursement. We think we can send you the design for the embroidery on the black dress but we cannot promise for sure.209 The dress will take twenty-six arm-lengths of satin, and for the linings of the sleeves two more, or twenty-eight total. Less will not do, given its size. I do not know how much gold it will take. I do know that Madonna Beatrice Gualenga had one embroidered this past Carnival season with ties made out of silk and two pounds of gold, which Messer Guido had picked up in Florence.210 I think if these were made out of pure gold, they would not be less than three pounds because they must be substantial ties, clearly expensive and beautiful, and not some tiny little threads. I urge you not to consider anything more or less because if you must make a purchase you want it to be splendid, otherwise do not bother. I am happy that you found some reddish velvet that is pretty. Likewise for this dress, including the linings of the sleeves,

261

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

you’ll need twenty-eight arm’s-lengths. For the caps, I am happy that you are having one made that is black and gold, which will especially match the dress, and the other should be reddish and gold, since the other dress is reddish. Your bride kindly requests that, since you are having a white dress made for her, you also get a white and gold cap made for her, all the more because she looks so good in white. I advise you to look for gold that is very fine with which one can work all the more beautifully. If you send me this material, I will take into account the amount and weight and see to it that you are not cheated out of an ounce of their materials. When the parts of the dresses are sewn together before being sent to the embroiderer, I will weigh them. I will re-weigh them when they come back from the embroidery shop. And I will have them worked on so secretly that no one will know they are here. It will be as if you had them sent from Padua beautifully done. Nothing else is happening here. We have taken care of your wishes. Along with your father-in-law, bride, and sister-in-law, we all commend ourselves to Your Lordship ceaselessly.211 Ferrara, 5 July 1532. Yours, Alessandra Strozzi And her secretary. Letter 206 to Lucia Strozzi Guido has fallen sick again and no one knows where Giovan Francesco is.

To the Most Magnificent Mother Worthy of Honour, Madonna Lucia, wife of the late Magnificent Messer Carlo Strozzi, etc. In Padua. Give to the bearer four soldi. Most Magnificent Madonna Worthy of Honour. Recently I notified Your Magnificent son of the illness of Messer Guido, and then that he had got better, that he had even gone out of the house two or three times. But he has since fallen sick again and yesterday he was running a high fever. It seemed my duty to inform you of this. Since I do not know where Messer Giovan Francesco can be found, I wanted to let Your Ladyship know so that you will be able to notify him. As long as Messer Guido is not well, he will be in a place where we will be able to

262

Letters

monitor him so that we can advise you if necessary. To you I commend myself and also to Madonna Lucretia forever. Ferrara, 18 July 1532. As an Obedient Daughter of Your Ladyship Alessandra Strozzi. Letter 207 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi Guido, still sick, will be sent to the Romagna as commissioner for the Este. Alessandra urges Giovan Francesco to carry out the wedding before Guido and his family leave. In the meantime, they continue the discussion of the dresses.

To My Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, Worthy of Honour. In Venice. May the Magnificent Ambassador of Ferrara please see to the faithful delivery of this letter. Magnificent Messer Zan Francesco Worthy of Honour. From one of my letters (which I sent to Your Magnificent mother not knowing where you were) I believe you have learned that Messer Guido has fallen ill again. For this reason I was urging you to settle your affairs to take care of this situation. Now I am notifying you that even though the illness has let up enough that we can hope he will soon have his health back, still he has not got out of bed. You may have heard how our Lord Duke has appointed him to be the Commissioner of Romagna, where he will have to move with his family as soon as he is better. For this reason I believe that even if the case of the Calcagnini is important, you should set it aside temporarily to pay attention to this other situation. Before Messer Guido moves away from here, you have to get married in order to be sure that the arrangements are upheld. For even if the Lord Duke has been pleased with Messer Guido, his son has not ceased from causing him trouble and as always the future is risky. Therefore in all respects it will be good for you to seek out a resolution. I am of the mind to send Sivero to you with a tailor without waiting for a response from you, so that that cloth can be measured and cut. In addition, you should know that once this situation has been worked out, you will not have to provide for the family in any other way, for

263

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

while Messer Guido is in that position in Romagna, which will last for at least two years, you will be able to enjoy the house and estate on this property. Here in the middle of the property you should be able to build your own house at your convenience, where you will be able to move once he returns. Recently Guido reported to the scribe of this letter that we should work out a deal to buy the house of the younger members of the Trotti family in the neighbourhood of Santa Maria del Vado. In any case one would never fail to find someone to buy it for the price that one had paid. And the real estate taxes would not cost more than it would cost for the rent of one house or the other. Guido did not write you with another plan because as soon as this other deal came about, whereby you could have an excellent house without having to pay rent, you come out ahead whatever you do. I have already talked about it with Guido, whom I found willing to entertain the idea of leaving you his house. But I will keep after him to be sure that whether he wants to or not he will do it anyway. As far as I can tell up to now, I think that he will do it willingly. Concerning the gold, in my opinion there is no doubt that gold from Florence will be better, so without waiting for any word from you, I had a letter written to Florence and within a week it will be here. There is nothing else that has to be done except to send 33 gold ducats to pay for it. If it costs more or less, I will take care of the bill. I intend to send you another pattern for the dress but I have not been able to get it from the tailor yet. I like it more than the first one, and neither one nor the other has ever been seen. Even if you did not remind me, I would not have something made that someone else had been seen wearing. I have spoken with your future bride, who commends herself to you forever. On the fans, she would like the one with the golden handle to have black and yellow feathers to match her gown. She would like the other one with the white handle to have white feathers. She would like one of her petticoats to be crimson satin with a golden hem or whatever colour you might prefer. She would like the other petticoat to be velvet from top to bottom in whatever colour you would like. Thus everything is being submitted to you for your opinion, for everything that pleases you will also please her. We cannot find a piece of white satin here and I have had people

264

Letters

looking everywhere. We will have to send to Bologna for it since you do not like the satin from Venice. I no longer want the crimson silk that I asked you about earlier. Instead I would like two ounces of the black silk with the crimson weave, which does not lose its colour when washed, as well as four ounces of the gold that is easy to work and malleable. You could have someone who is knowledgeable about these things take a look at it because I would like to make a collar to match the dress. Send it here quickly so that we can start working, for these things take a very long time. In addition to what Madonna Alessandra has written you, her secretary urges you to send it here soon because it is always dangerous to delay. Both of us, and especially your bride and Messer Guido, commend ourselves to you endlessly. Ferrara, 23 July 1532. Yours, Alessandra Strozzi. Letter 208 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi The wedding has been announced and plans for the wedding dresses continue. Alessandra expresses concern about timeliness of the preparations.212

To the Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, Worthy of Honour like a Brother, etc. My Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Worthy of Honour. In addition to what Madonna Alessandra wrote yesterday to Sivero (I believe you saw the letter), I am notifying you that Messer Guido has announced the wedding between your family and his to many people. It cannot but happen that many ladies will begin to come to visit the bride. For this reason Madonna Alessandra begs you to order the making of a dress or a petticoat, perhaps a petticoat would be best, and a cap, as quickly as you can. She begs you to command the tailor immediately both for this reason and because Sivero’s wife is very ill with little hope of recovery. Since he is away right now he runs the risk of losing much. If ladies come to visit her and she is not well dressed, it will be to everyone’s shame. Therefore see to this as quickly as you

265

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

can and do not let this month pass before you come here to marry her. This is the only thing that occupies Messer Guido, who is not going to work, although every day they try to get him to go. I know that Madonna Alessandra has written you about coming with a group. As far as Messer Guido is concerned, he would like you to come with as few people as possible, since he has shipped away so much of his stuff and would not be able to host a large group. This is his will that must be carried out. I offer and commend myself. Ferrara, 8 August 1532. Yours, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 209 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi Ariosto and Alessandra urge Giovan Francesco to come immediately so that the wedding will be delayed no longer.

To the Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, Worthy of Honour like a Brother, etc. In Mantua. My Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Worthy of Honour. Madonna Alessandra does not accept your excuse (nor will she take back that name she called you in her letter) for alleging that you have matters of concern because she believes – and I agree with her – that no deal, no matter how important, should be more important than this one. The excuse that you propose of your father-in-law’s ill health would not be accepted by the Lord Duke as legitimate. He has already been up and about for ten days and the time has passed when he might have had a relapse. Therefore I recommend that you set everything else aside and that you come six days before the 28th rather than one hour later, both because you are expected and desired and because you greatly harm Messer Guido by delaying. The Lord Duke is urging him to go and take his position. For him to delay his departure is very costly, since his son-in-law, daughter, and grandchildren have come from Modena while his other son-in-law and daughter have come from Carpi. Between the two of these families who have been there for a while there are twenty mouths to feed not counting horses.

266

Letters

They are also expecting the arrival from Mantua of Madonna Leonora, his sister, so that it will be hard for them to hold a room for you. And Messer Guido is bothered further because everyone is uncomfortable, since he has already sent ahead much of his furniture. In short, you should come today rather than delay till tomorrow. We received the caps from Mantua and they are very beautiful and everyone really liked them. We will get money from your overseer and we will take care of buying the gold that is needed. In the meantime she and I commend ourselves to you as does your bride, much more than do we, according to Madonna Alessandra. Ferrara, 20 August 1532. Yours, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 210 to Federico Gonzaga Ariosto sends a copy of the third edition of the Furioso to the Duke of Mantua.

To My Most Illustrious and Noble Lord, Most Esteemed Lord Duke of Mantua, etc. My Most Illustrious, Noble, Esteemed Lord. Having recently reprinted my Orlando Furioso, corrected it, and made some additions to it, I thought it my debt in service to Your Excellency to make you a copy, since I am persuaded that you will appreciate it. Nor will I publish any other copies before I am sure that Your Excellency has this one, which I am sending to you by way of a man who used to be in service to our friend Messer Coglia and who currently lives in Mantua.213 For the service of delivering this book and for having waited three days for me to finish it, even though he does not really have any obligation to me, I commend this man to Your Excellency in whatever thing he may seek to obtain from you. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Ferrara, 8 October 1532. Of Your Excellency Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto.

267

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Letter 211 to Isabella d’Este Gonzaga Ariosto sends a copy of the third edition of the Furioso to Federico’s mother.214

To My Most Illustrious and Noble Lady, Most Esteemed Lady Marquise of Mantua, etc. In Venice. My Most Illustrious, Noble, Esteemed Lady. I am sending to Your Excellency a copy of my Orlando Furioso, which I have made better with corrections and increased in size by six cantos and numerous stanzas scattered here and there throughout the book. I would be falling short of my duty if I did not give Your Excellency a copy before anyone else, since I revere and adore you and since I know that you are wont to like my compositions, whatever their true value. May you please accept it with the good intentions with which I present this small gift to you. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Ferrara, 9 October 1532. Of Your Excellency Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 212 to Margherita Paleologa Gonzaga Ariosto sends a copy of the third edition of the Furioso to the duchess of Mantua, Federico’s wife.

To My Most Illustrious and Noble Lady, Most Esteemed Lady Duchess of Mantua, etc. In Mantua. The Most Illustrious, Noble, Esteemed Lady. Since I have always been a very devoted servant of the Most Illustrious Gonzaga family and since Your Excellency is a part of that house, it is necessary that I treat you as I have the others. So that you might recognize me as one of your servants, I thought it right to present you with a small gift of this book of mine, Orlando Furioso, which I have recently had reprinted and made better with corrections and additions. May you in your kindness accept it as a marker of the beginnings of my service

268

Letters

and count me among your servants. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. Ferrara, 9 October 1532. Of Your Excellency Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 213 to Guido Baldo Feltrio della Rovere Ariosto expresses regret that he has no new plays to submit for production.

To My Most Illustrious and Esteemed Lord Guido Baldo Feltrio de la Rovere, first born of the Duke of Urbino, etc. In Pesaro. My Most Illustrious and Noble Lord. I received the letter of Your Excellency dated the seventh of the past month very late because its bearer, Messer Antonio Bucio, could not find me when he came to Ferrara, since for more than one month I have been with my patron, the Duke, in Mantua. When I returned he gave me the letter and told me in person about how much Your Excellency would like to have some comedies of mine that are not performed any more. It pained me then and now to be unable to satisfy a thing of so little importance, since I would like to serve you with my abilities and my life. But Your Excellency should know that I have only written but four comedies, of which two, The Pretenders [I Suppositi] and The Coffer [La Cassaria] , were stolen from me by actors and a full twenty years after they were performed in Ferrara they were printed to my enormous displeasure. It has been three years since I picked up The Coffer again and I changed it almost entirely and rewrote it. I have expanded it as seen in the copy sent by the Lord Marco Pio to Your Excellency. It has been presented here and nowhere else in this new form. The other two plays, Lena [La Lena] and Necromancer [Il Negromante], have only been performed here as far as I know.215 I do not have any other plays. It is true that many years ago I began another, which I called The Students [I Studenti], but I never finished it for many reasons. And if I had finished it, I would not be able to prevent the Lord Duke my patron and the Lord

269

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

Ercole from making me have it performed first in Ferrara before I gave any copies of it anywhere else. Your Excellency should excuse me for this. If I can be of service to you in other things, take advantage of me as one of your most devoted servants. In gratitude to you I commend myself always. From Ferrara, on the 17th of December 1532. Of Your Excellency Most Devoted Servant, Ludovico Ariosto. Letter 214 to Giovan Francesco Strozzi A letter on family matters surrounding the wedding.

To My Most Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Strozzi, Most Worthy of Honour. In Villabona. My Magnificent Messer Giovan Francesco Worthy of Honour. Through Your Lordship’s messenger I have received all those things that you write to have sent me by him. First concerning the money, I made Ser Iacomo Ziponaro216 take it to the merchant, repay him and get a receipt, which I will send back to you. Ser Iacomo will write to Your Lordship more fully about this. Concerning the diadem and pearls and the other things that your messenger was supposed to take to Lugo for Madonna Leona, we thought it best not to let him go forward because right now the whole Lugo area is flooded. It is hard to get there unless you know the roads really well, even worse if you are on horseback. Beyond this, the whole country is full of the Emperor’s cavalry and infantry so that our messenger would run the risk of being robbed by them. I sent the letters but I decided to keep the goods here with me, that is, the black sable, the diadem, the pearl earrings, the slippers, and the holy book. When I come upon a loyal and skilled servant who will be able to travel, then I will send the goods to you. I am very thankful to Your Lordship for the chain that you have sent me, even though it was not necessary for you to put yourself out in this way. I will hold it in reserve in your name and mine. I warn you and beg you please not to speak of having given this gift to me because if your mother-in-law heard about it, neither you nor I would ever hear

270

Letters

the end of it. I will keep it hidden away and no one else will know that I have it other than you and the writer of this letter. Concerning the servant of Your Lordship about whom you write me, you should know that after your departure he was married. Nonetheless he is able to come willingly but I did not want to send him without first having you understand the situation he is in. The wife that he has taken is a woman who has been with him a long time without children; she gave him a house in town and one in the country. And she is well off enough not to have need of you. I commend him to Your Lordship as a man who is very loyal and skilled. In any case deal with this as you see fit. I will write no more of the Jew because your servant will tell you in person what I said to him. Of your not coming here, not only do I excuse you but I also praise you, for I am amazed at how anyone could get around here. There is nothing else happening. Together with my secretary I commend myself to you and I beg you to commend us to Madonna your mother and your sister. Ferrara, 25 December 1532. Of Your Lordship Alessandra Strozzi.

271

This page intentionally left blank

III: HERBAL DOCTOR

Image taken from Theodor Hampe, Die fahrenden Leute in der deutschen Vergangenheit (Leipzig: Eugen Diederichs, 1902). The itinerant quack comes into town, his banner unfurled displaying his wares, his horse spreading wisdom as it proceeds. While not exactly the image conjured up by Ariosto, it seems to have some essential details in common with the portrait of Antonio Faventino in Herbal Doctor.

Summary of Herbal Doctor by Section In the opening section, an unidentified speaker comments in a philosophically tinged and Latinate Italian on the fate of the human being who is born helpless into the world among other animals that are much better adapted for survival. The speaker invokes the authority of Pliny to support his claim about the vulnerability of human beings in general. Endowed with the gift of reason, however, the human being can use his wits to overcome the various challenges to his survival in the world at large. In section 2, the speaker makes a case for the value of applying reason to the study of the art of medicine. He argues that the best doctor is not only intelligent but also someone who has travelled widely and learned about the varieties of medical knowledge in different places. He cites prominent examples of good models from the Greek, Roman, and Arabic cultural worlds. In the third section, the speaker introduces himself, Antonio Faventino, a decorated and rewarded medical doctor, so he claims, who has benefited from his travels and who is clearly not to be confused with an itinerant quack. Nor is he to be judged any less meritorious than the sort of doctor who stays put. Ariosto writes into the piece the distinction growing in his time between empirics or wandering doctors and physicians who were tied to a court and/or a university. Antonio alludes to the small stage on which he is standing above the crowd in a public space of some sort and he points to the banner behind him on which are depicted many of his achievements. He goes so far as to venture a comparison between himself and the legendary doctor of antiquity, Asclepius, and he claims a special rapport with the dukes of Mantua and Ferrara. With the speaker’s identity revealed and with him coming into focus on his platform before the audience, one has the growing sense that the philosophic exploration of reason and medicine is about to shift into a sales pitch for a product that the itinerant doctor happens to have brought along. Indeed, the fourth section sets up the transaction that the herbal doctor would like to make focusing on the herbal remedy that he would like to present to the onlookers as a gift. But not before he claims even more authority by revealing that the recipe for the elixir has been handed down to him by none other than

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

the great professor of medicine from Ferrara, Nicolò da Lunigo, also known as Leoniceno. In the fifth and final section, Antonio presents the elixir, explains how it should be taken, and invites his audience to make a small donation in order to receive a container of it. He urges them to take advantage of the unique opportunity.

276

1 It is likely that in the beginning when God on high created the living beings who thrive in the lowest spheres of the cosmos – in air, water, and on earth – man, newly made, turned himself around, took a look at the other species of living creatures, and grew sad. And it is likely that he lamented his nature not a little when he saw some creatures rising in flight and ascending toward the heavens, others swimming confidently from the top of the water to its deepest depths,1 still others racing and wandering swiftly over the boundless land. He saw creatures dressed in feathery plumage, creatures with different kinds of coverings, bristly hairs, leathery hides, thick coats, hard shells, scales, sharp spines, and with these able to withstand the cold and heat at night and during the day. He noticed that some creatures could lie in damp caves and others on the naked earth under the open sky without harming their bodies. He realized that nature did not attend only to creatures with sensitive souls in this regard: even the trees were allowed the capacity to protect themselves with a double bark for summer and winter.2 And next he saw some species of animals armed with pointed horns, others with the strongest teeth, still others with the sturdiest feet, or with feet fast enough to get them out of any danger at a moment’s notice. Taking a look at himself, by contrast, he recognized that he was lazy, slow, and weaker than all the others. Nor was he provided with any defence either to stand and fight or to flee. He saw himself alone created nude, cast upon the naked earth in the midst of wailing and sighing on the day of his birth. He saw that no creature had tears more ready than he. Created so inept, so imbecilic that he cannot move at his beginning but on all fours,3 nor can he hold up his body until long after birth, nor can he change nor steady his steps, nor articulate his voice, nor even grasp how to eat, nor feed himself. Then he saw that he was subject to great and countless illnesses much more than all the other living beings. Wherefore, taking these things into account, he began to believe4 that it would have been much better not to have been born and that nature was for him more a stepmother than a mother, as Pliny says in the seventh book of his Natural History.5

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

But the Highest Good did not want him to endure this error and such serious grief for long. He sent him an inspiring thought through which He made him realize that there was one single gift which He had granted to him and to him alone. There was one gift beyond the multitude of gifts that had been given to him together with all the other animals, which made him not only equal but far superior to the other animals: the gift of reason.6 Always taking counsel with reason, and never separating himself from reason’s best teachings, he was able to obtain for himself alone all the blessings that heaven had widely distributed among many different species of creatures. Once the new man had been illuminated in that way, he no longer gave heed to his senses, as he was wont to do; instead he took reason for his counsellor and guide. He realized that God had made him Prince and Lord not only over the other living creatures but also over the elements. And he realized that all the things found in the world had been placed there for his use and pleasure as long as he knew how to take them up and arrange them in a timely fashion, for his good use and preservation, and not for the destruction of life. He realized that although he was naked, he could protect himself from the hot and cold by seeing to it that those beings beneath him gave him wool or hair or that he could remove their hides and skins to cover his nakedness. He realized that he could use material from the woody earth and from the other elements to defend himself as needed from the changes in the weather. And he realized that at the same time he could have instruments and machines to lessen his labours, with which, along with the work of stronger animals that could be domesticated with know-how, he could cultivate the rough fields and make them yield an abundance of fruit for him. And if he wanted to move from place to place, using now the horse’s agility, now the river’s current, and often coupling with the water the blowing of propitious winds, he would not envy either the limbs of deer or the wings of birds. And although nature had not provided him with his own weapons nor with any other defence, he realized that many of those animals that had teeth or claws could be made servants and attendants for snagging, killing, and hunting various animals that either seemed harmful and bothersome to him or that satisfied his needs for

278

Herbal Doctor

food or something else of comfort to him. He observed that he was not subjected to so many illnesses as long as he did not let his wit,7 which was the principal and proper function of his soul, rot from too much leisure, but used it instead to search out, for the preservation of this life, which sorts of things might be useful and which dangerous to him. He observed that the highest Creator had not produced in vain so many species of trees, such a variety of herbs, so many types of medicinal resins, so many different liquids, and so great a number of so many other things. By becoming acquainted with them and using them at the right moment he could escape illness and he could maintain his life in an optimal state for a long time. Thus man, newly made, listening first to his senses, thought himself the poorest and neediest of all creatures, then taking counsel with his reason, realized that he was the richest and best off of them all. Very many fine and useful things thus were offered to him, which reason made him see, close at hand and at a distance, as from a very high vantage point. And he judged them worthy of being the subject of long study and great diligence. 2 But more than all the other arts one seemed to him fine and useful and worthy of the longest study and of the greatest diligence. One art in particular teaches how to keep a person healthy, how to remove him from a state of bad health to good: the art of medicine. Because, without any doubt, if life, if being alive, is the most precious thing we have, it is right that the art that teaches us to maintain it in a good and optimal state and to prolong it is the most noble and necessary art that one may learn. The earliest humans came to this realization as did those who followed them over many centuries from age to age. For this reason the primeval ancients did not engage in any study more valuable or better than to search, investigate, and understand the powers and properties of herbs, plants, and other things created for their service. A person could not present a finer gift to his friend, a father could not leave a more advantageous inheritance to his little son, than the gift of a new awareness of something that might be useful for the maintenance

279

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

and recuperation of our health. And if in that most ancient of ancient times people lived for hundreds of years, it must be that it was not for any other reason, besides the grace of God Omnipotent, than the diligence and study that each person used for the preservation of his or her own life. Asclepius, the most excellent doctor, confirms this opinion of mine. He was not yet born in those times when life in general was so long. He lived closer to our age at a time when one did not live any longer than one does now. Of him it is reported that he was so confident of his knowledge that he said that he would not want to be known as a doctor if he were ever seen ill in all the days that he might spend on earth. And he truly obtained as much as he had promised, for he conducted his own life beyond the one-hundredth year without any pain or suffering. Many in our present age perhaps could do the same, if lethargy, greed, gluttony, and lust, and, most of all, pride did not prevent them. Few there are who will accept the burden of studying and most judge any other thing earned to be more valuable than health and life. To many it seems enough to know the minimum necessary to give them the credibility and reputation of a doctor. Many others who know that which is harmful to them let themselves be conquered either by their gluttony or by some other dangerous appetite. But the majority of doctors, out of pride, do not deign to consult any other opinion than their own. The typical doctor would rather have the sick patient die than cease doing that which he has begun, for better or worse. Nor will he ever renounce what he has already said. The typical doctor does not want to admit that it would be impossible for the intellect of one man alone to suffice to investigate the properties of all the species, there being an infinity of them. Nor does he want to realize that for this reason the human was created a social and conversing animal. Humans have received the gift of speech more completely than other animals so that one person who learns one thing, another, another thing, and a third, a third, might come together for the purpose of elucidating and clarifying their thoughts, with each person explicating and sharing his discovery with the others. But why am I saying that there may not be anyone sufficient in and of himself to know all those things, when not even as many as there are in a large city, nor as many as there are in a large region are sufficient to know even the one-hundredth part of them? Some things are

280

Herbal Doctor

known in Greece that are not known in Italy, many things in India8 that are not understood in either Greece or Italy. There are many different things that are found in different places and they are not found anywhere but there. Some things come to light in Scythia that Egypt does not produce. Many things are produced in Egypt that are not known in Scythia or anywhere else, and so on and so forth. In many places many things are understood which could not be understood in one place or in a dozen others. And for this reason not Plato, Pythagoras, Apollonius of Tyana,9 nor many others who have been most outstanding in learning appeared to be able to learn enough in a single school or in one city even though it was Athens. For which reason they went out travelling, intending to learn the opinions and beliefs of those other than their own Academics, Stoics, Peripatetics, and Epicureans.10 They wanted to speak with the Magi in Persia, with the Gymnosophists in India,11 with the Prophets in Egypt and Phoenicia, with the Druids in Gaul, and with others in different countries who were reputed to be wise. And in this way searching the world, in part hearing and in part seeing different things, they succeeded most excellently. And in spite of their discomfort they brought back comfort and utility not only to their nations, but to the whole human race. What shall I say of Apollo, Chiron, and many others who were revered and worshipped as gods because they diligently investigated the powers and qualities of herbs and carried healthful remedies to preserve human life from different places back to their nations? If they had not ever distanced themselves from the houses of their fathers (as many of the most esteemed doctors of our age have not done), they would have only had notice of the medicines that come to light in their own countries and they would not know of those medicines from the lands of their travels. And thus so many kinds of roots, wood, herbs, which come from India, Ethiopia, Syria, Arabia, would never have been known by Galen, Serapion, Dioscorides, Cornelius, Avicenna, Mesue, nor by any other Greek, Roman, or barbarian doctor.12 3 I am not saying this because I want to detract anything from anyone, nor do I want to accord myself more than I deserve. For detracting

281

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

and speaking badly of others never was my custom, nor do I ever wish it to be. On the contrary, my custom was and always will be to honour everyone and hold them in reverence, especially those who are virtuous or who may bear some semblance of virtue. Moreover, I do not believe that my wishing to praise myself might help me much, for such words of self-praise would not seem to be other than words issuing from my own mouth. I would then be in danger of acquiring the reputation of a liar rather than gaining the credibility of one who tells the truth. But I say it in self-defence against an untrue rumour, which, through the insinuations of some who are envious and greedy, has been stamped in the minds of the majority. That rumour is that doctors who travel from one land to another, and who are on view to the public from raised platforms just like this one,13 are of little worth, and that they are peddlers of idle chatter rather than practitioners of any useful work, and that only those doctors who always stay put in one place know and understand everything. In response to which rumour I say that if the doctor who has become an expert and learned in the schools and has practised in one city alone deserves honour and credit, you should not deny me the same if you wish to respond to me truthfully. Because he who is experienced in different studies and who has the experience of all the schools, not only in Italy but beyond the mountains and beyond the sea and in whatever other place where knowledge is learned, must deserve much more honour and credit.14 He will have seen all the illnesses one can imagine and he will have had direct experience of them, passing through different regions and different natural habitats, observing different customs. Let works rather than words reveal whether or not I am such a doctor. As to whether or not my works have given me praise or blame in another time or place, in Italy the most holy city of Rome can bear witness, as can most powerful Venice, and Milan, with all its inhabitants, along with many other cities of Lombardy. The whole Kingdom of Naples with the island of Sicily can bear witness, and more than all the others, Mantua, the most ancient city, and Ferrara, the most noble, can bear witness. Because of the wondrous and frequent cures I carried out in the first of these last two cities, its Most Illustrious Lord, the Duke, made me a member of his household, granting me, for myself

282

Herbal Doctor

and my progeny, the power to bear his coat of arms, which you see depicted here above.15 In the other city, the Most Wise and Invincible Lord, Duke Alfonso, made me a knight of the golden spur and granted me the title of Count. This was in addition to the other gifts which his Excellency’s vast largesse awarded me. He also wanted me to take the degree of doctor of arts and medicine in Ferrara’s excellent and most famous college. Ample evidence of all this recognition is displayed in the array of my various privileges. In addition to all this, when I left Ferrara a few days ago (even though I will return there soon) that most gracious Lord had this banner painted for me. On it you see depicted a testimony to the many events that his Excellency either saw directly or heard from trustworthy witnesses. Now then, who and how great a man is Master Antonio Faventino (such is, in fact, my name), ingenious Germany knows no less than Italy, all the way from the Dukedom of Austria to those of Saxony and Silesia, down along the banks of the Rhine through all the Frankish lands, through all of Flanders and Brabant, as far as the island of Holland. There are so many places in France, England, and Scotland that bear witness to my works that it would take a long time to list them all in an orderly fashion. You may find people there who are still astonished by my works and by the wondrous remedies that I provided for every kind of illness. And now, turn to the East. Look to Albania, Bosnia, Romania, Morea,16 the Greek Islands, and all of Greece as far as the famous city of Constantinople. And on the other side, go to the island of Crete, and from Crete to Rhodes, and from Rhodes to Cyprus, until you arrive at Alexandria of Egypt and the large and populous city of Cairo. Go to Jerusalem and Damascus, and from there zoom over all of Syria as far as the foot of the Taurus Mountain and the swamps of the Azof Sea. Everywhere you go throughout this land, you might hear the name of Master Antonio Faventino mentioned with the same respect used by the ancient Epidaurians when speaking of Asclepius. But now to avoid a long speech, I will not mention all the successful actions that I performed in all the places that I have named (and in many others that I have not!). Moreover, there are so many accomplishments that I would not finish telling you about them, even if I spoke

283

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

all day today and all day tomorrow. However, I did have the image of some of my deeds depicted on this banner, so that one could see with one’s own eyes what would be far too bothersome and annoying for me to recount. In fact, if I had to talk about them to all those who are curious to know, I would indeed have to repeat them too many times. It is likely that what I just told you with my words and showed you depicted here above would not be trusted as much as the truth within it requires. But I am not hurt or afflicted much by this fact. This has happened to many other excellent men, men even greater than I, who have found themselves in places where they were unknown. 4 Anyway, so that truth will not be suffocated by untrue rumour, and so that when I return to this city you may acknowledge that I am veracious and not mendacious (and say it to those who did not have any knowledge of me before), I thought of leaving with you a gem, a treasure, a sign of wealth. Now if you love your mental well-being and your body’s health, and if you care for your life, you should hold this item more precious than a cash gift of ten thousand gold pieces. And in fact, what good do gold and silver do to an invalid? What good do vast fields and the most fertile possessions do to a corpse? Only a long and ever healthy life should be called a true and incomparable symbol of wealth, because that is precisely what it is. With this precious and invaluable gift I wish to enrich each of you today, and I will do so presenting you with this excellent medicament, the miraculous remedy contained in this small jar, which though small in size is enormous in value. The remedy was taught to me and left to me as a legacy by a most excellent teacher of mine, whom I always remember with the deepest respect. I am speaking of Master Nicolò of Lunigo, a most wise and venerable man, an inexhaustible ark of science.17 Many times he showed me the love that he always held for me (greater than for any of his other disciples). He always gave me a sign of his affection in a most clear and unmistakable way, but he was never more explicit than the time when, having reached the end of his life, he called me and said:

284

Herbal Doctor

My dearest Antonio, it seems to me that the most evident sign of benevolence one friend could give to another is to bequeath him the greatest or the best part of his abilities. At this point I would willingly give to you what I find myself owning in this world, since I could not imagine being able to place it with any better person. However, on the one hand I see that you do not need either land or houses (since you acquired enough of it on your own, and if you really wanted to, you could acquire much more than I own). On the other hand, it seems to me that I could not, at least not without the greatest guilt and blame, deprive my nearest and closest relatives of their legitimate right to inherit it. Therefore I pray you to be content that I leave these goods of little importance to those who need them more than you. Moreover, you do not need it, while they, without it, could only live with great difficulty. However, even though I take this away from you, since undoubtedly I feel as if I am subtracting from you everything of mine that I am not bestowing on you, rest assured that I am giving you such a great and rich recompense that you will remain happy for the rest of your life with this exchange. Since what I am giving you here is the scientific knowledge you need to produce the incomparable Elixir of Life, which was conceived but never realized first by Hippocrates, then by Galen, then by many other most excellent physicians after them. After a long study at last but mainly with the aid of divine grace, I have brought it to perfection. With it, as you know, I have preserved in prosperous health the long lives of many men who deserved to be almost immortal, among them, the Most Illustrious and the Most Excellent Duke Ercole, Lord Sigismondo, Lord Rinaldo, and Lord Alberto, all brothers of the Most Illustrious House of Este. An endless number of others (so many in fact that it would take long to name them) following my advice all took this most precious elixir and similarly lived a healthy life well beyond the eightieth year. Moreover, had they made better use of it, following exactly my rules, they perhaps would still be alive today (both for the value of my advice and for the natural power of the remedy). And had nature given me a stronger constitution from the beginning, I would have lived past one hundred and twenty years of age. God does not want man to live any longer than that. However, in spite of my weak and fragile constitution, I have come to my ninety-seventh year without even a fever or pain.

285

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

And finishing his comments, that loving and saintly elder handed me a little booklet in which a lengthy treatise contained the instructions on how to make the most excellent elixir.18 5 You have heard how such a rich and valuable gift came into my possession. The trials and experiments that I performed with it are well known in those cities and countries mentioned earlier. Everywhere I went, I was always struggling both to bring relief to human calamities and to acquire and increase the health-caring science of medicine, which cannot be perfect in one, four, ten, or fifty cities. The main virtue of this elixir blessed by God is that it keeps you safe from pain and from any kind of illness for a year, if you take it every morning at the crack of dawn and afterwards you sleep for half an hour, starting at the middle of April until the middle of May. But you must take only a nut-sized amount of it, diluted in chicken broth, with no salt or any other salty thing. And he who takes it will live without any fever or pain until the moment of extreme decrepitude, if he continues to do this year after year, always in the same way and for the entire time, keeping away from salty things, from onions and garlic and similar foods, in other words, from all those things that are forbidden by doctors to those who purge themselves. However, if somebody who has not taken the elixir at the right time in the course of the year (either in the summer or in the winter) should be oppressed by headaches, or by kidney stones, or by excoriation of the bladder, or by heat around those areas, by strangury or dysuria, or should not be able to retain urine, or should feel abdominal or uterine pain, or any kind of pain, then that person should take the prescribed quantity with Malvasia wine, or Vernaccia wine, or any other strong white wine, and he or she will immediately be free from pain and feel healthy once again. In the same way, a person suffering from Job’s disease who uses this medicament will never again feel pain; and the remedy is so beneficial that he will see his pimples and boils heal along with the other sores that usually break out. Its use heals sciatica, and if used by a woman who is in pain before or after childbirth, it takes away every affliction.

286

Herbal Doctor

This remedy here is also appropriate for relief from gout, or as we call it, podagra. It is true, though, that, for that disease, as for a stomach ache and for a flow of blood (since it works wonderfully for the one and the other), it has to be taken with red wine, the darkest in colour that one can find. And in the same way, he who has an aching tooth or feels his teeth decaying should warm up the elixir with the same dark wine and then keep it in his mouth. If he does this, he will be sure that he will never again lose a tooth or have a toothache. And there is nothing as wondrous as this elixir to heal the tightness of the chest, if you take it with apple-water. And if somebody is about to lose his sight, either because of a cataract or for irises, or for ophthalmia, or for any other problem, or even if he has already lost it (provided that the eyes are still intact), he should take a nut-size amount of it and mix it in a glass of two-thirds fennel water, one-third Malvasia (or a very good white wine), and he should wash his eyes with it three times a day. In a very few days he will have recovered so much of his sight that it will be evident that, continuing the cure for some time, he will completely free himself from the temporary blindness. And you who are afraid of ending up with tuberculosis, or you who have just contracted dropsy, here is your health, if you know how to catch it. It would take too long to list all the various illnesses for which my elixir is the quickest remedy. However, rest assured that he who uses it will spare himself any kind of disease the human body may suffer. And he who already has contracted some illness of whatever kind, taking this remedy, will feel completely free or at least will see a wondrous improvement in his condition. And if God lets me live longer, the next time I return to this city, I hope for the gift that I will have given you that not only will you see and hear from me gladly, but that you will honour and revere me, more than what is appropriate to accord any mere mortal. And you should know that I choose to visit this city often both for the nice location and for the civil society of those gentlemen and very good citizens whom I have found here. In fact, I plan to return here more often than I ever did in any other place in Italy or in any other country. Now at last here is the gift; here is the item of wealth; here is the miraculous elixir which I wish to bestow on you. This small vial

287

‘My Muse will have a story to paint’

contains the secret to lasting health and a lengthy human life, and to a greater degree than defective nature could give it to you. If not forbidden by eternal and unchangeable laws due to Adam’s guilt, this would have been sufficient to make us eternal and immortal. I said I wished to donate this to you and I truly want to give it to you as a gift. And in fact would you call giving away something of the greatest value for a small and insignificant price anything but a gift? I would not ask of you even this insignificant and small price if I could make the elixir without much cost to me.19 Unfortunately, since it is made of various medicinal herbs found at both ends of the earth that you cannot have but with great expense and effort, if I want to make other bottles once I have finished these few, I am forced to ask you to pay that small price. And if I have to put up some of my own money, I do not want to put up so much that to benefit you I hurt myself. Besides, what I am about to ask from you is such a small sum that it should not seem a heavy imposition. I guarantee that it cost me more that it will cost you now. Anyway, I do not care if I take a loss at this point, since I hope that you will not deny me any price I might ask when I return in the future if indeed I ever return to this town. Once you have known and experienced it, you will be willing to forgive me if I demand a much higher price than the one that I am asking now. Then I will want to sell it to you, now I am happy to give it to you as a gift and in fact all I want from you is a silver coin for each bottle. Now, is there anybody so stingy, so miserly, that he will regret to spend for his health and for the very preservation of his life such an insignificant price? Is there a man so poor that he will not pawn or sell his mantle or if he does not own one will not strip himself of his undershirt or even his shirt? Is there anybody who will not make an effort not to eat for a day or two so that he could spare a silver coin with which he could gain and acquire this treasure and this inestimable wealth? Alas, do not let this opportunity get away! Opportunity is like a lady who shows you her forelock of hair.20 You must react quickly in order to seize it. But if she decides to turn the back of her bald head to you, I really would not know when or if she will be so benevolent as to let you come close to her again.

288

Notes

A Note on Texts and the Translation 1 I am convinced by Lovarini’s argument that ‘erbolato’ signifies the seller of medicine and not the product he sells. I also find intriguing his speculation that the title’s lack of a definite article in the early editions may reflect the cry of a street vendor announcing himself to the public with the call, ‘erbolato,’ as if to say, ‘your herbal doctor is here.’ At approximately the same time as Ariosto, Teofilo Folengo uses it in this same sense. See Baldo 11.511 and 13.290. I thank Ann Mullaney for this reference.

Introduction 1 Letter 5, partially destroyed by fire, has been carefully reconstructed by Cappelli in the 1862 edition of the Lettere (xxv and 8–10). The phrase ‘la mia Musa’ (my Muse) is Cappelli’s emendation, which I find credible. 2 In the editions of 1516 and 1521, the stanza is at 40.70. See Dorigatti on the incorporation of this stanza (and another immediately following it, which was cut in 1521 and 1532) into Ariosto’s draft of the poem’s final canto (8–10). It seems safe to assume that the poet adds the celebratory stanza while revising the poem in Rome at approximately the time of this specific letter. 3 See Mengaldo’s edition of Boiardo’s Opere volgari for insightful comments on the linguistic form of Boiardo’s letters, especially 449–77. 4 See Catalano’s Vita 1: 618; Catalano’s biography remains essential for a full understanding of Ariosto’s life and times. 5 For the most detailed account of the editing and publication of the letters, see Sforza 3–29. 6 See the bibliography in Stella’s 1984 edition of Ariosto’s letters, Lettere 630–1, items 10–24.

Notes to pages 9–11

7 For the short fragmentary text, see Svevo, Teatro e saggi 771–5 and 1571–4. For a biographical note on when Svevo composed it, see Romanzi 36–7. Even though the work is considered a youthful exercise, it still accurately depicts Ariosto’s concern with justice, expressed in many of his letters from the Garfagnana. 8 Scholars use the reference to the Duke of Mantua (3.39) to establish 1530 as a chronological point before which the work could not have been written, since the Gonzaga family received its ducal title in that year. But of course the editor of the first edition, Jacopo Coppa, could have altered the text to that effect after the fact. In any case, other references, e.g. to Leoniceno after his death in 1524, make it clear that the work was completed at some point in the last eight years of Ariosto’s life. 9 There has been disagreement over the attribution to Cittadini; see especially Capparoni and Malaguti. Giovanni Manardi, a disciple of Leoniceno, teacher at the studium, and physician to Alfonso I d’Este, addresses Cittadini as Antonio Faventino in an undated letter on medical aphorisms (39–44). See Vasoli for the definitive biography and for a record of Cittadini’s dispute with Florentine humanists over Neoplatonism (68–9); see Garin’s entry ‘Antonio da Faenza, filosofo peripatetico’ in Cultura filosofica 303–9. I prefer to think of the character as a fictive representation through whom Ariosto alludes to several specific people and to a general type of person. But the possible connection with Calcagnini and Brasavola (on whom more below in the notes on Herbal Doctor) needs to be explored in more detail. 10 For Leoniceno in general, see Carrara. For the Ferrarese setting in which Leoniceno worked and its links to proponents of humanism in Florence and Venice, see Garin’s various discussions, which remain essential, and the essays by Bacchelli. For more specific discussions of the debate surrounding Pliny, see Thorndike and Nauert; and for a brief discussion of the debate in the context of the ongoing criticism of Avicenna and medieval Latin commentaries by medical humanists like Leoniceno, see Siraisi, Avicenna 67–9. 11 Leoniceno includes a letter from Poliziano to him, dated 3 January 1491, in the front matter of De Plinii et plurium aliorum in medicina erroribus, which he dedicates to the Florentine humanist. I have consulted the Mazzocchi edition, published in Ferrara in 1509, with Poliziano’s letter on pages 2–3. The short text was expanded significantly from subsequent exchanges with other humanists – Ermolao Barbaro, Francesco Totti, Girolamo Menocchio

290

Notes to pages 11–17

12 13

14 15

16

17

– which Leoniceno then incorporated into later editions of his critique. It is worth noting that Giovanni Mazzocchi published the first edition of the Orlando Furioso in 1516. A further example of the widespread interest in Leoniceno’s work during Ariosto’s lifetime (to choose one among several) is the 1532 edition published by Cratander in Basel with De Plinii on pages 1–61 and Poliziano’s letter on an unnumbered page that precedes the text. Leoniceno’s primary concerns in the debate over Pliny were two: that the corrupt text of Natural History might lead doctors astray and that Pliny’s information regardless of the status of the text was often erroneous (Carrara 26–8). Both men are mentioned in the same passage in Giovanni Battista Giraldi’s Commentario delle cose di Ferrara 110. This is a line of interpretation that runs all the way to Benedetto Croce, who similarly interprets Ariosto’s career choices as an either/or move from humanism to vernacular writing (23). See Savarese’s fundamental discussion of Calcagnini’s portrait of Ariosto, as well as Prandi’s interesting recontextualization of Savarese’s reading (8–10) and his comments on Croce (11). The evolution of Ariosto’s handwriting over the course of his lifetime, from the initial humanistic cursive of letter 1 to the hastily dashed off cancelleresca that characterizes his letters from the Garfagnana and the majority of his literary autographs, would seem to support this rather simplistic view of his career (Cerlini 41). But graphology has its limits and here it does not tell the whole story of Ariosto’s intellectual development. Ronchi includes these documents in four appendices to her edition of the Erbolato 495–562. See the translation of Beame and Sbrocchi. On Ariosto’s choice of prose versus poetry for the comedies, see letter 202, in which he thanks the Duke of Mantua for returning a copy of versions in verse to the poet. It seems that the Duke only wanted to read them in prose! See also Fatini, ‘Ariosto prosatore’ 322–35. I have not found a single discussion of this important letter in English other than the popularized work of Gardner, who essentially does nothing more than paraphrase it (100–5). Italian critics have been more attentive but tend to read the letter for its historical commentary on Ariosto’s rapport with Alfonso and Alfonso’s troubled politics with the Pope. The Stella edition of Ariosto’s letters has been digitized and is available in an on-line version in the Biblioteca Italiana project at: http://www .bibliotecaitaliana.it/xtf/view?docId=bibit001276/bibit001276.xml

291

Notes to pages 15–30

18 Giovanni de’ Medici, the future Leo X, was Cardinal Legate in Bologna before becoming Pope. 19 The italicized portion of the text is in Latin in the original. 20 Bembo, Historiae venetae libri XII, p. 200; Della historia vinitiana, p. 176 verso; Guicciardini, Storia d’Italia 3: 212–13. Not surprisingly, both Pistofilo (508–9) and Giovio (34–7) in their biographies of Alfonso describe the same event in some detail. But none of these commentators so much as mentions Ariosto in describing the Duke’s escape, not even Pistofilo, one of Alfonso’s secretaries and a good friend of the poet. 21 Vergil’s verse ‘Unspeakable grief, Queen, you command me to renew’ is transformed by Dante: ‘Tu vuo’ ch’io rinovelli / disperato dolor’ (You want me to renew desperate grief). 22 Ariosto’s citation of the original omits the last two metrical feet of line 459: ‘quis iam locus,’ inquit, ‘Achate, / quae regio …’ The narrative aside, ‘he said,’ and the direct address to Achates are not necessary for his meaning. 23 I examine this letter in more detail in the broader context of the reception of Vergil in the Ferrarese Renaissance in ‘Marvelous Vergil in the Sixteenth Century.’

Letters 1 For an exploration of Alberto Pio’s relation to Aldo Manuzio and other humanists in the context of the percolating religious dissent, see Bacchelli’s ‘Appunti.’ 2 One castellata equals seven hectolitres, that is, seven hundred litres. 3 A good phrase to say that he will be especially attentive. 4 Teodosio Brugia was a treasurer for Cardinal Ippolito. 5 Benedetto Brugia, related to Teodosio mentioned above, was a financial officer in the service of Alfonso. The Brugia family was prominent in Ferrara at this time (Folin 144). 6 Cardinal Pietro Isualli. 7 Giovanni Paolo Baglioni. 8 Stella, citing Cappelli, reports that Ludovico Pico, Count of Mirandola, was decapitated by a Venetian cannonball while riding alongside Ippolito during the battle of Polesella on 15 December 1509 (422–3). See also Catalano, Vita 1: 322–3. 9 Giovanni Sforza. 10 A standard circumlocution for the Pope, who was, at the time of this letter, Julius II.

292

Notes to pages 31–8

11 Both Ludovico da Canossa and Ottaviano Fulgoso/Fregoso are participants in Castiglione’s Courtier. Ariosto addresses letter 17 to Fregoso after he has become Doge of Genoa. 12 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 36. 13 Enea Pio da Carpi. 14 Carlo d’Amboise. 15 On references to time in Ariosto’s letters, Stella points out that 2400 coincides with sunset, not midnight (652, n. 11). Here and elsewhere I make an approximate calculation based on that timeframe. 16 This is the humanist mentioned in Ariosto’s first letter and who is mentioned years later in letter 55. 17 Lord of Coreggio. 18 Stella (652) compares this letter with the following (letter 8) to establish the date of composition. 19 The citizens are providing provisions for the French soldiers who are stationed in the city. 20 From the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca: ‘Marraiuolo. Dall’adoperar la marra, è il guastatore negli eserciti’ (9:961). ‘Guastatore,’ Ariosto’s word here, which literally means ‘destroyer’ or ‘devastator,’ is a peasant hired by the condottiere with the specialization of besieging fortifications, sometimes also called ‘marraiuolo’ after the hoe, ‘marra,’ often used as a tool of war. The legislation is in response to a ducal law that required farming communities to supply these specialists in a time of need. 21 Giovanni Boiardo, Count of Scandiano, cousin of the poet Matteo Maria Boiardo. 22 Ercole di Sigismondo d’Este, Ippolito’s cousin. 23 Stella speculates that this must be written shortly after the preceding letter (653). 24 For a facsimile of the original, see Bertoni 191. Stella establishes approximate date from the letter’s content (654). This letter breaks off uncharacteristically without a signature. 25 Guido Silvestri, a doctor and poet who was a member of Ippolito’s court, remembered in Furioso 42.89. 26 Teodosio Brugia, Ippolito’s treasurer, mentioned in letter 4. 27 Ariosto is requesting that Giovanni use his position to waive a rule that prevents him, Ariosto, referred to as the beneficiary in the Latin phrase, from receiving a third ecclesiastical benefice, where Ariosto’s friend, Giovanni Fusari, is currently the archpriest. He refers to his fight for this

293

Notes to pages 38–41

28

29

30

31

32 33 34 35 36

37 38

benefice in Satire 2 and to the specific request and negotiation referred to in this letter in Satire 3.181–3. Giovanni Fusari. Catalano speculates that in order not to risk losing this benefice because of his illicit relationship with Alessandra, Ariosto will transfer it to his son, Virginio, on 2 September 1524 (1: 613 and in his essay ‘Madonna Alessandra’). Letters were hand delivered, often by the person to whom the letter refers. Ariosto uses the phrase ‘presente exhibitore’ to refer to the bearer of the specific letter in hand in the vast majority of letters up to and during his time in the Garfagnana. After that period, he drops the more formal phrase and uses versions of ‘portatore de le lettere’ (letter 194). For a facsimile, see LADIFC 98; the calligraphy of this copy is atypically clear. Ariosto must have taken great care to write legibly to Isabella d’Este’s powerful Gonzaga husband. Ariosto’s word here is ‘inventione,’ which refers to Boiardo’s precedent of brilliantly converting a mixture of Carolingian and Arthurian literary material into a dynastic poem in honour of the House of Este (to whom the Marquis of Mantua is related by marriage to Isabella d’Este). One might thus be tempted to render it ‘poetic matter’ in reference to the narration itself. In literary theoretical discourse the term comes to mean a literary invention or creation; the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca cites Aretino, Vasari, and Torquato Tasso among others who use it in this sense (8:1165–7). As early as Dante (Paradiso 29. 95) the word can signify a fantastic creation. I would like to suggest that Ariosto’s use here picks up on all these senses. Note that he spells it in the Tuscan way in Furioso 7.19 and 11.26 with a ‘z,’ ‘invenzione.’ For a detailed reading of this letter, see the second part of the introduction above. Giovanni de’ Medici. The poet’s beloved cousin, whose death he reports and laments in letters 23–4. Wiggins translates much of this letter in his helpful introduction to Satire 3; see Satires 54–5. Fantino was a high-level ‘cancelliere,’ a term I tend to translate with ‘clerk’; given his status, ‘secretary’ is better here. See Folin for the hierarchy of positions in the chancery (132). Alluded to in Satire 7.58–60. Paride Grassi, an important official in the courts of Julius II and Leo X.

294

Notes to pages 41–54

39 Bernardo Dovizi, also known as Bibbiena, the playwright of La Calandra. 40 These are the three official ways in which an author’s copyright could be recognized. The first two are autonomous documents; the third is a note written on the bottom of the letter with which the original request is made, hence its designation as a ‘re-script’ or ‘rewritten’ document. The term ‘rescript’ can refer to any official document resent to the sender with a response written at the bottom of the original text. 41 In fact, the poet adds three stanzas to the second and third editions, Furioso 42.20–2, in which he praises the Fulgoso/Fregoso family. 42 Ruffino Belingerio, representative or vicar for the Este in Milan, to whom Ariosto addresses letter 20. 43 Giulio de’ Medici, the future Clement VII. 44 It is interesting that the poet delays sending the play because he has to commission a scribe to make the copy. One would like to know the exact significance of this decision. Is it that scribal labour is beneath the now famous poet or that he considered his handwriting inadequate for the Duke or that he had too much work to do as he revised the Furioso? Or is this merely a rhetorical ploy to gain him more time for revisions to the play? 45 One of Ariosto’s humanist friends, author of Libro de natura de Amore, originally based in the Estense court in Ferrara, he moved to the Gonzaga court in Mantua in 1508 to serve Isabella d’Este as one of her secretaries. Ariosto lists him among his friends at Furioso 46.14, but Innamorati points out in his commentary on this letter that the poet reduces the number of lines in honour of Equicola from four to one in revising the poem between the first and third editions (1468). 46 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 86. 47 Gian Giacomo (Giovanni Iacomo) Calandra, Secretary to the Duke of Mantua, to whom Ariosto addresses letter 198. Ariosto honours his loyal service to Isabella d’Este Gonzaga in Furioso 42.85. 48 The Necromancer. 49 A famous clown in the papal court. 50 Of note is that a week later Ludovico’s bastard son, Virginio, was legitimated by one of Pope Leo’s secretaries in Rome. Could there have been a quid pro quo exchange, play for document of legitimation? A copy of the document with an accompanying explanatory letter by Girolamo Baruffaldi (dated 4 April 1804) is in the Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna, Recapiti spettanti a Lodovico Ariosto e sua famiglia, B 315.

295

Notes to pages 55–70

51 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 87; note that the caption to the facsimile gives an incorrect date. It should read 8 November 1520. 52 Member of the Gonzaga court in Mantua, mentioned along with Calandra in Furioso 42.85. 53 Ariosto most often uses ‘podestà’ (or ‘potestà’ or ‘podestade’) in reference to the judicial function of the supreme authority of a town or city. Therefore most often I render it ‘judge’; see letters 34, 55, 87, 104, 106, 116, 137, and 155; he uses the word in slightly different senses in 124, ‘judicial power,’ and in 194, ‘possession.’ 54 He arrived on the job 20 February 1522. 55 Battistino Magnano will be a thorn in Ariosto’s side throughout his time in the Garfagnana. 56 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 48, top image. 57 Sforza provides a letter from Bonaventura Pistofilo, ducal secretary to the commissioner, dated 9 April 1522, which Ariosto essentially rewrites here, keeping much of the same vocabulary and syntax (123). Which prompts one to ask: is it for fear of erring on Ariosto’s part or does he merely want to dispense with the duty as quickly as possible? 58 The first of many letters (see also 42, 55, 137, 139–40, 160) in which Ariosto details his struggles with the families that essentially rule the Garfagnana, which were headed by the three men mentioned here: Micotto, Pierino Magnano, and Bastiano Coiaio. In the absence of a significant aristocracy, the Garfagnana was controlled by the more powerful of its local peasantry (Wickham 369). 59 Tomaso Micotto. 60 The sides in question are Italian, i.e., Florentine, vs French, i.e., Estense. 61 For a very clean and relatively legible facsimile of the original, see Bertoni 155. 62 Both Doria and Bernardino were fighting on the French side against the Spanish, who had control of Genoa at the time. 63 This line resonates from within the romance-epic tradition and sounds like a comment from the poet’s workshop. For more on truth and fiction in chivalric epic, see Sergio Zatti’s essay on Turpin in The Quest for Epic 60–94. 64 The letter to which Ariosto refers is lost. 65 The phrase rendered with ‘extorting money’ is ‘por taglie.’ The primary meaning of ‘taglia’ in an economic context is ‘tally’ or ‘receipt’; ‘tax’ is a secondary meaning. But the word’s semantic range also extends to ‘bounty’ and ‘reward’ and ‘price,’ as in ‘to put a price on someone’s head.’ It

296

Notes to pages 70–9

66 67 68 69

70

71 72

73

74 75

proves a useful term in Ariosto’s dealings with the local criminals. See examples in letters 64, 67, 76, 84, 110, and 179, among others. Letter 34. Bastiano Catucio. A corrupt lawyer in the bandits’ pocket. Remo was one of two primary ducal secretaries to Alfonso in Ferrara; the other, Bonaventura Pistofilo, is first referred to in the correspondence at the end of this letter. Alfonso’s letters to Ariosto, many of which are in Sforza’s Documenti, are written in the Duke’s voice but signed by Remo and Pistofilo. In 1524 when Nicolò Leoniceno dies (on whom see Herbal Doctor below), Pistofilo uses his position to have a monument erected to Leoniceno in the church of San Domenico in Ferrara for having been cured by the famous doctor; see Pistofilo 482. Alfonso’s other main secretary, Bonaventura Pistofilo. The recipient of Satire 7, he is among Ariosto’s close friends who gather to greet the poet at the end of his long voyage; see Furioso 46.18. He refers to letter 41. A financial officer for the ducal treasury, sometimes called Zoanne, in charge of the accounts for the crossbowmen and apparently able to take to the field himself; see letters 98, 101, and 103. The eldest son of Alfonso, who would become Ercole II, was trying to negotiate with the papacy on Estense territorial rights in the Garfagnana, Reggio, and Modena, as was Ludovico Cato, referred to in the next sentence. Apparently nuns from Genoa had a reputation for renouncing their vows (Stella 670). Stella (670) refers to Simon Contardo as ‘priest and castellan,’ but Sforza provides a letter from Bonaventura to Ariosto (12 March 1522), written at that moment just after his arrival when Ariosto is learning who everyone is in the Garfagnana’s murky political world, in which he recommends that Ariosto ‘call the priest, Francesco Contardo, or Simone his father, our castellan’ (113). Another brief letter in Sforza (118), dated 4 April 1522, from the Duke to Ariosto refers to Simone Priete as castellan, which seems to contradict the previous one. I am giving precedence to the earlier letter, since it is from Bonaventura, the Duke’s most reliable secretary, and I am assuming that Francesco is the priest; his father, Simone, the castellan. In other letters from Ferrara to Ariosto, he is asked to provide Simone with food for his family (Sforza 119). A letter from 13 February 1524 seems to confirm this correction of Stella (Sforza 256).

297

Notes to pages 81–101

76 11 October. 77 I have rendered ‘Ragione,’ which here Ariosto capitalizes, with ‘reckoning’; it can also mean ‘justice’ in Ariosto’s usage. The rhetoric of commerce impinges on that of freedom. 78 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 23. Cappelli discusses how he reconstructed the portion of this letter destroyed by fire, which one can see in the facsimile (‘Due lettere inedite’). 79 Virgilio da Castagneto, another bandit. 80 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 71, bottom image; note that the caption incorrectly identifies the facsimile to be from 15 July 1524. 81 The letters from the Garfagnana are full of the discourse of faith, trust, confidence, and the lack thereof. The term ‘fede,’ rendered here as ‘faith,’ also has an economic undertone. It can designate either a receipt or a power of attorney that empowers one to withdraw money from another’s bank account (Edler 119). The overall sense Ariosto wants to relay is that he trusts the Luccan Lords enough to put himself in their debt. 82 On this term, see note 146 below on the various measurements mentioned in letter 129. 83 Giovan (or Zan) Giacomo Cantello, an ally of Amorotto, referred to in several letters below (letters 84, 93, 97). 84 Alberto Pio da Carpi, mentioned in letters 1 and 7, was also ruler of Reggio. 85 Stella (675) refers to Pretaccio, whose name means ‘bad priest,’ as an actual cleric, but one wonders if that is correct. ‘Pretaccio’ is a place name in Tuscany near Lucca from which the man’s name could derive. The response from the Florentine officials makes no reference to him as priest (Sforza 156–7), nor does anything else in the record. 86 A local judge. 87 Ariosto used virtually this same sentence in letter 61. 88 Apparently Ariosto had been out of the area for a while, during which time the outlaws flexed their muscles. 89 I.e., the papal and Florentine side. 90 Perhaps Ariosto means to indicate a different town here and not his own, since he knows that its representatives are already present. The letters, especially the longer ones, are not always perfectly logical. 91 People hired to live in the fortified houses and castles throughout the valley with the responsibility of serving as watchmen.

298

Notes to pages 103–31

92 Ariosto was able to send not only mushrooms and trout but also some ‘ardichiocchi’ (radicchio), according to the ducal response of 24 April 1523 (Sforza 173). The Duke was pleased. 93 This proclamation and seven others are collected in Stella’s edition, pages 495–501. Ariosto refers to around a dozen. In letter 41 he refers to a proclamation which he had copied (‘ho fatto fare’), suggesting that he dictated them to an assistant. 94 On 24 April 1523, Obizo writes back immediately for the Duke, who orders Ariosto not to make the people from Poggio pay the fine; threaten to fine them, he is told, but do not carry it out (Sforza 173). 95 Ariosto was able to return to Ferrara once each year while he was on duty in the Garfagnana. 96 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 49, top image. 97 Ariosto’s language is moving rather playfully between the registers of the court and the confessional. 98 This letter addresses a concern to which Ariosto will return in subsequent letters, that of unfair taxes or fees applied to purchases and to the shipping of products such as livestock or salt. The customs officials in neighbouring Lucca, ‘datiarii’ (also ‘daciarii’ and ‘datieri’), are often on the take. In some instances the letters refer to customs fees, ‘datii,’ in others, taxes for importing and exporting, ‘gabelle.’ This last term is also used in reference to real estate taxes (letter 207). 99 He is referring to men from Lombardy. 100 Previously mentioned in letter 55, where Ariosto expresses his doubts about the man’s fidelity. 101 An inexact biblical citation that sounds rather more like a verse from the Old Testament than the New (Stella 681). 102 Herbal Doctor ends with a similar plea to take advantage of the moment and not lose the opportunity at hand. 103 For a facsimile, see Opere minori, ed. Santoro, plate between 544 and 545. 104 For ‘rescript,’ see note 40 above on the term in letter 17. 105 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 56. 106 Most likely a reference to baths in Lucca to the south. 107 Moro dal Sillico, mentioned in letters 41, 52, 72, prior to this one. 108 I.e., he was attacked late in the afternoon. 109 Ercole II is being groomed for the time when he will assume his father’s position.

299

Notes to pages 131–60

110 111 112 113 114 115 116

117 118 119 120

121

122 123

124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

An interesting detail on Ariosto’s secretarial habits. Moro dal Sillico. For ‘rescript,’ see note 40 above on the term in letter 17. There is no record of the letter to which Ariosto refers. Pope Adrian VI. For a facsimile, see LADIFC 49, bottom image. Wickham’s shrewd point that Ariosto ‘came to know the valley, much as an anthropologist would today’ (366) is substantiated with a letter like this one. Nicolò Rucellai. Achille Granduccio, referred to in letters 55 and 140. Ricciarda Malaspina. Augustino was a former ducal commissioner in the Garfagnana from 1505 to 1507 and at the time of this letter was one of the Duke’s counsellors and an ambassador to the Emperor, Charles V. Terre Nuove, a cluster of villages located to the north of the valley, is one of the four districts in which the Estense divided the Garfagnana for administrative purposes. See letter 98. Pacchioni is a Lombard name associated, it would seem from this comment, with a particular place, which I have not been able to identify; Temporia, also mentioned in letter 72, is a small village in southern Lombardy (Olivieri 532); Wickham (372) locates Temporia in the territory of Reggio Emilia. The leader Amorotto had been killed in a battle on 5 July 1523. A customs official in Castelnuovo. Iacomo degli Agostini Pisano. See letter 72. See letter 101. He refers to letter 104. For a facsimile, see LADIFC 109; the caption incorrectly identifies this image. See letter 72 for Moro’s initial imprisonment earlier in April, 1523. This letter is missing. From letter 34 we learn that Bastiano Coiaio is the ‘podestade’ or judge in Trassilico and from many other letters (e.g., 47, 52, 72) in addition to this one, we learn the extent to which he is a ringleader among those who are thorns in Ariosto’s side.

300

Notes to pages 161–83

134 Wickham is good on the complicated relations between the Counts of San Donnino and the Madalena family (377–8). For a facsimile of this letter, see LADIFC 59. 135 Ariosto assumes, it would appear, that Piero’s family ordered Genese to murder Count Giovanni. 136 Simon Contardo and his sons, mentioned in letter 47. 137 In response to Ariosto’s dire tone in this letter, the Duke sends more soldiers, which his secretary Bonaventura spins this way in a letter of 13 September 1523: ‘In short, bear in mind that these soldiers have been sent to you as a testimony of your good judgment and courage’ (Sforza 223). 138 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 30, top image. 139 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 31, bottom image. 140 In letter 117, Ariosto explains that a ducal citizen gained land in Luccan territory through a dowry, upon which, according to this letter, he has been harvesting chestnuts. 141 The Luccan officials write back on 7 November 1523 claiming that they cannot do more than they have done, implying that Ariosto and the Ferrarese side should be doing more than they are at present (Sforza 236). 142 See letter 64. 143 Giulio de’ Medici becomes Pope Clement VII on 19 November 1523. 144 Stella reports that at least one page is missing from the beginning of this letter (697). 145 An unidentified community, presumably in Lombardy. 146 The staio and staro are measurements more or less equal to a bushel, but as Ariosto implies here, there is much slippage between the different regional versions of these (and other) measurements. 147 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 64. 148 Yet another secretary working for Duke Alfonso, in addition to Pistofilo and Remo. 149 One assumes that the commissioner also received some form of monetary reward for each bandit caught, but Ariosto does not state that outright. 150 Referred to in letter 117. 151 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 31, top image. 152 The manuscript of this letter is riddled with textual problems, hence the untranslatable passages in brackets.

301

Notes to pages 183–96

153 Stella speculates that Ariosto had been given the authority of judge but it was subsequently removed and transferred to the captain alone, perhaps to save money (699). 154 Bonaventura denies that the men in question have received special favours in a letter of 31 January 1524 (Sforza 250–1). 155 The Duke follows up on 1 April 1524 with a firm letter to the officials of Trassilico in which he states unambiguously that he will not confirm Micotto as judge because he has not done a good job up to now (Sforza 264). 156 As with letter 135, the manuscript of this letter is riddled with textual problems, hence the untranslatable passages in brackets. 157 He has been mentioned earlier in letters 34 and 55. 158 He makes reference to an unidentified letter. 159 Bonaventura’s response to this plaintive letter, 3 February 1524, is all business with not so much as a word about Ariosto’s various complaints (Sforza 253–4). 160 See letter 135. 161 See letter 137. 162 In his commentary on this letter, Fatini (Opere minori 63) assumes that Simon Contardo (letter 47) and ‘Simon prete’ (letters 139–40) are the same person. As I point out in my notes on letter 47, the record is rather confused, but this much is clear: Simon Contardo, who may or may not have been a priest, is in control of the fortified house at Verrucole with his son, Francesco, who is a priest. The phrase ‘Simon prete,’ used once in letters 139 and 140, is the only example in Ariosto’s prose where the title of priest follows the name of the individual; moreover, it is not capitalized as it is in some cases when it precedes the proper noun (Prete Riccio, letter 49, Stella 214). Perhaps this rather unusual formation stands for ‘Simon and the priest,’ which would make sense. I have not been able to consult the originals to see if the editor merely made an error of transcription. 163 The priest is Francesco Contardo, Simone’s son. 164 The Luccan officials write to Ariosto and agree to lower the taxes but they accuse Acconcio (see letter 121) of trafficking in salt illegally, specifically of shipping it into Lombardy for resale (Sforza 257–8). 165 In a letter from Bonaventura to Ariosto on this case, whose date, 8 January 1523, gives an indication of just how long the case had been dragging on by the time Ariosto writes letter 144, the ducal officials tell their commissioner that he need not seek their blessing for every one

302

Notes to pages 198–244

166 167

168 169 170

171 172

173

174 175

176 177 178 179 180

of his decisions: ‘… you did not have to send us a copy of the judgment’ … ‘Proceed with the resolution of the case in that way that you and your advisers think best’ (Sforza 156). For a facsimile, see LADIFC 30, bottom image. Giovanni or Giovannino was a fierce and infamous mercenary soldier with ties to the Florentine Medici family who fought for the papal forces in 1520–1 against the French, then with the French, then in 1523–4 with the imperial forces, i.e., he moved around. His men carried black banners after the death of Leo X and again after his death (in a battle against the Ferrarese) in 1526. His name means Crow in Italian. Bartolomeo Prosperi, official ducal scribe. For a facsimile, see LADIFC 79. This letter still shows the creases, wax, and address of the recipient visible on its outer fold. The letter is addressed on the side that will become its front and then it is sealed on a primary fold on its back flap with a spot of red wax. For a facsimile, see LADIFC 48, bottom image. Wickham’s point in another context is appropriate here: ‘Ariosto was furious at this, as have been those recent historians who see the poet as a “modern” administrator thwarted by the Duke’s traditional clientelistic ways; it may, however, have been the Duke who recognized the realities of his local power better’ (372). Regarding the criminal priest, the Duke’s response of 28 July 1524 is severe: ‘If that priest who has died was as you have described him … he will be judged before an infallible tribunal and perhaps his death will be occasion for purging this province of ours’ (Sforza 283–4). Ariosto refers to several men named Acconcio; according to Stella, this reference is to the one mentioned at the end of letter 76 (704). In response to this letter, in a letter of 4 August 1524, Alfonso reprimands Ariosto for splitting up the force he has sent him (Sforza 288). San Georgio stands for Genoa. This issue was first addressed in letters 80 and 90. For a facsimile, see LADIFC 71, top image. For a facsimile of the original, see L’Ottava d’oro, insert between pages 64 and 65. Ariosto’s son, Virginio, inherited his father’s estate, including his manuscripts and books. He was born out of wedlock and was legitimated in 1520 (see note on letter 27) and again in 1530.

303

Notes to pages 244–58

181 An Estense contact in the Vatican who helped Ariosto manage his own and his son’s benefices (Stella 711). 182 Sometimes one clearly hears the scribe’s voice, but Alessandra could write when she wanted to. In fact, Ariosto refers to a letter she has written in letter 204. 183 Guido was the executor of Alessandra’s late husband’s estate (Catalano, Vita 1: 614), hence her proximity to him. 184 Leona. 185 One of Alessandra’s children from her previous marriage, named after her late husband. 186 Francesco II Sforza. 187 Appointed castellan of Milan on 15 February 1531 (Stella 713). 188 Polidori, Opere minori II: 542, note 3, on Ariosto’s ‘drapeselli’: ‘Lombard pronunciation instead of “drappicelli,” here used it seems in the sense of kerchiefs.’ I interpret this to mean head scarf. 189 Giovan Francesco’s sister. 190 Lucia Strozzi. 191 Here Ariosto implies that he is envisioning yet another edition of the poem, which he never completed. It could be that he was thinking of incorporating the Cinque Canti into the poem. 192 The poet praises Gonzaga in the addition made to the 1532 Furioso at 33.46. 193 An important comment that suggests Ariosto intended to publish more minor works, most likely a reference to lyric poetry. 194 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 95. 195 Guido’s sister, not to be confused with his youngest daughter of the same name. 196 Palazzo Strozzi in Ferrara, Stella assumes (714). 197 Guido’s wife, Simona degli Uberti. 198 He refers to I Studenti, which was completed posthumously in one version by his son, Virginio, and in another, by his brother, Gabriele. 199 The Coffer and The Pretenders had been reprinted in pirated editions in 1509, much to Ariosto’s frustration. 200 He refers to Lena and The Necromancer. 201 For a facsimile, see LADIFC 106. 202 The Po flooded with some regularity and needed to be controlled as much as possible. 203 For the Duke’s ‘rejection’ letter to Ariosto, see Catalano, Vita 2: 323–4. He compliments Ariosto for the plays’ ‘inventioni’ (the originality of

304

Notes to pages 258–77

204 205

206 207 208 209 210 211

212 213 214 215

216

their poetic matter) and for his having written them well but concludes ‘a me non piace de farle recitare in rima’ (I am not pleased to have them performed in verse). He then invites the poet to resend them in prose! But Ariosto does not feel the need to satisfy that invitation. At this point in his life, Ariosto can easily hold his own, as this letter shows. For a facsimile, see LADIFC 99. Ariosto and Alessandra maintained separate residences since their marriage was secret, but close relatives knew how much time they spent together. An unidentified person who opposed Giovan Francesco’s marriage to Guido’s daughter. For a facsimile, see LADIFC 16. Ariosto obviously means prospective father-in-law. Alessandra apparently knew much about making dresses. In Furioso 24.66, Ariosto waxes poetic on her skills as an embroiderer. In Ariosto’s day the Ferrarese pound was equal to approximately three-fourths of one pound in Anglo-American measurements. Ariosto again refers to Guido’s family members, including his daughter, Elena, as if the wedding with Giovan Francesco had already taken place. For a facsimile, see LADIFC 17. Girolamo da Sestola, a member of the Estense court. For a facsimile, see LADIFC 70; note that the caption gives an incorrect date for the year: it should read 1532. Lena and Necromancer were performed for the first time in Ferrara in 1528 (Catalano, Vita 1: 588); Ariosto had attempted to have Pope Leo X stage Necromancer in Rome in 1520 to no avail (letter 27). Alessandra’s notary.

Herbal Doctor 1 On Ariosto’s use of the phrase ‘da sommo ad imo,’ ‘from top to bottom,’ see Looney, Compromising the Classics 20ff. 2 In his description of the soul, Ariosto is using the vocabulary of Aristotelian psychology as received though scholastic philosophy. Aristotle, following Plato to some extent, conceptualized the human soul as tripartite with nutritive, sensitive, and rational parts. Plants have only nutritive or vegetative souls; animals, nutritive and sensitive; humans, all three.

305

Notes to pages 277–81

3 One wonders if Ariosto had in mind the etymology of ‘imbecille’ (which in his dialect is spelled without the double consonant): from Latin imbecillus, ‘weak’ or ‘feeble,’ derived from an unrecorded form imbacillus, ‘without a staff,’ i.e., tottering from lack of support. The etymology contributes to the image he wants to give the reader. And if Herbal Doctor is some sort of performance piece, one can easily imagine this sentence being acted out with a simple prop. Part of the work’s ironic humour derives from this sort of erudite wordplay, which one associates with the genre of comedy. Herbal Doctor is full of highfalutin etymologies. 4 Ariosto uses the word ‘openione’ (which he also spells ‘oppenione’) with more or less the same range of meanings as the Latin cognate, ‘opinio’: opinion, conjecture, rumour, among the possible nuances. Here at 1.33, the phrase ‘venne in openione’ means something like ‘he adopted the opinion’ or more loosely as I have rendered it, ‘he began to believe.’ The choice of word implies that the evidence is incomplete, hence it is an opinion and not fact. At 2.23, Ariosto calls on the authority of Asclepius to confirm an opinion, subtly juxtaposing once again evidential fact and unsubstantiated conjecture. At 2.41 and 2.69, he uses ‘parere’ as a synonym of this meaning. And at 3.11, 3.19, and 4.1, he uses the word in the sense of ‘rumour.’ Ariosto’s playful use of this and other essential vocabulary of philosophical discourse (e.g., ‘scienza’ and ‘cognizione’) would bear more careful scrutiny than I can give it here. 5 Santoro discusses the debate over Pliny’s text and its importance to humanistic discourse in Ariosto’s lifetime in his introduction to the Opere minori (46–8). Also see my remarks in the Introduction on Pliny, Leoniceno, and Poliziano. 6 The Highest Good’s gift to humans in section 1 is balanced by the herbal doctor’s gift (‘dono,’ same word) to his gullible audience in section 5. 7 Here Ariosto has used ‘ingegno,’ the word that Boccaccio uses to describe the essential mental cleverness of the merchant in the Decameron, where it can sometimes be rendered as ‘ingenuity.’ Ariosto is thinking of the distinguishing characteristics of the human’s tripartite soul. 8 As the commentators note, Ariosto refers to India’s importance as a source of medical knowledge in Furioso 19.21. His clustered references to India, Scythia, and Egypt, along with those to Ethiopia, Syria, and Arabia below, may also imply some familiarity, however vague, with ongoing conversations in Ferrara inspired by Boiardo’s translation of Herodotus’s Histories. The Greek historian discusses all of these cultures and places in

306

Notes to pages 281–2

9 10

11 12

13

14

Books 2–4, much of which Boiardo incorporates into his translation. One of Ariosto’s contemporaries, Giovanni Pencaro, annotated a copy of Boiardo’s translation (Biblioteca Estense, Modena, α.H.3.22) with interesting glosses on doctors and illnesses in several of these cultures; see, e.g., folios 63, 111, 118v, and 119. See Looney, ‘Postille.’ A follower of Pythagoras from the first century AD, reputed to be a wandering ascetic and holy man. Palmer points out that an important argument in the debate between physicians or medical doctors and pharmacists or herbal doctors involved travel. He mentions two sixteenth-century herbal doctors, Angelo Forte and Leonardo Fioravanti, who promoted the value of travel for doctors: ‘Forte believed that wisdom was to be sought through a personal investigation of nature, and in travel and dialogue with local people in various countries’ (112). Wise men of India reported to live in the woods without clothing, hence their name. Of these six illustrious doctors the first three were Greek, Cornelius Celsus was Roman, and Avicenna and Mesue were Arabic. It may be noteworthy that the inventory to the library of Celio Calcagnini, Ariosto’s friend and perhaps one of the figures to which he alludes in the Herbal Doctor, lists works by four of them (all but Serapion and Avicenna), as well as works by Pliny and Hippocrates, who are mentioned, respectively, in sections 1 and 4 of the Herbal Doctor. In the Archivio di Stato, Modena, Archivio Calcagnini, Busta 95, ‘Inventario dei libri di Celio Calcagnini’ (entries refer to folio page numbers of the booklist): Galen 5; Dioscorides 11v; Cornelius Celsus 4v (additional list); Mesue 6; Pliny 5v; Hippocrates 9. I am not trying to suggest that Ariosto had read any of these authors, but their presence among his friend’s books reminds us of the elevated humanistic circle to which he had access and about whom and for whom he was writing this satirical piece. He gestures to the platform he stands on as if it were a stage prop. Shortly below he will refer to the banner on which are depicted many of his achievements that forms a backdrop for the platform and together with it creates a kind of outdoor stage. At this point in the work, the academic speech begins to transform into the discourse of the marketplace and theatrical flourishes abound. Ariosto is putting into question the claim of empirics that experience is sufficient for a physician.

307

Notes to pages 283–8

15 Polidori’s edition of Opere minori (2: 520) points out that this detail dates the work to 1530 (or later), the year in which Federigo Gonzaga the marquis of Mantua was granted the title of Duke from Charles V. 16 The medieval and early modern name for the Peloponnesus. 17 Ariosto remembers Leoniceno among the illustrious humanists who greet him at the end of his poem’s long narrative, Furioso 46.14. 18 Antonio Musa Brasavola, possibly one of the intellectuals Ariosto means to make fun of in this piece, publishes a small book (140 pages in octavo format) of recipes of elixirs, Examen omnium electuariorum, in 1548. This second edition of the work (it was first published in 1543) is in response to the attempted poisoning of Ercole II in 1546 by a disgruntled courtier, Giovanni Paolo Manfrone. Brasavola spends the first third of the book discussing the notorious case of Manfrone and defending the art of pharmacopeia before moving to the second two-thirds, in which he provides approximately twenty detailed recipes of medicinal concoctions. But one wonders if the publication could also perhaps be in response to the first edition of Ariosto’s Erbolato, which had come out in 1545, in which case it would be an example of the author redeeming his good name and asserting the seriousness of his profession. Gliozzi’s entry in the DBI is a good starting place for research on Brasavola, along with Bacchelli’s essay in Micrologus, but the book on him is still waiting to be written. 19 As frequently happens in Ariosto’s comedies, the theme of money inevitably intrudes. 20 Ariosto alludes to the typical iconography of opportunity or occasion in which the concept is portrayed as a bald woman with one lock of hair above her forehead, which one must grab at the right moment. He refers to the same image in Satire 6.181–3.

308

Bibliography

Texts and Documents Ariosto, Ludovico. Comedies. Trans. Edmond M. Beame and Leonard G. Sbrocchi. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1975. – Erbolato. Ed. Gabriella Ronchi. Vol. 3. Tutte le opere di Ludovico Ariosto. Ed. Cesare Segre. Milan: Mondadori, 1984. – Herbolato di M. Lodovico Ariosto. Nel quale figura Mastro Antonio Faentino, che parla della Nobilta’ dell’Huomo, et dell’Arte della Medicina cosa non meno utile, che dilettevole, con alquante stanze del medesimo, novamente stampate. ... Ed. Jacopo Coppa Modanese. Venice: Giovann’Antonio and Pietro Fratelli da Sabio, 1545. – Herbolato di M. Lodovico Ariosto. Nel quale figura Mastro Antonio Faentino, che parla della Nobilta’ dell’Huomo, et dell’Arte della Medicina. Con alcune Rime del medesimo. Ferrara: Vittorio Baldini, 1581. – Herbolato di M. Lodovico Ariosto. Nel quale figura Mastro Antonio Faentino, che parla della Nobilta’ dell’Huomo, et dell’Arte della Medicina. Con alcune Rime del medesimo. Ferrara: Vittorio Baldini, 1609. – Lettere. Ed. Angelo Stella. Vol. 3. Tutte le opere di Ludovico Ariosto. Ed. Cesare Segre. 1965. Milan: Mondadori, 1984. Pages 109–562; 629–731. Available on-line at: http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it/xtf/ view?docId=bibit001276/bibit001276.xml – Lettere dalla Garfagnana. Ed. Gianni Scalia. Bologna: Cappelli, 1977. – Lettere di Lodovico Ariosto tratte dagli autografi dell’Archivio Palatino di Modena. Ed. Antonio Cappelli. Modena: Tipografia Cappelli, 1862. – Lettere di Lodovico Ariosto con prefazione storico-critica ... Ed. Antonio Cappelli. 3rd edition of previous entry. Milan: Hoepli, 1887. – Opere. Ed. Giuliano Innamorati. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1967. – Opere. 2 vols. Venice: Orlandini, 1730. – Opere. 4 vols. Ed. G.A. Barotti. Venice: Pitteri, 1741.

Bibliography

– Opere minori. Ed. Giuseppe Fatini. 1915. Florence: Sansoni, 1978. – Opere minori. Ed. Filippo-Luigi Polidori. 2 vols. Florence: Le Monnier, 1857. – Opere minori. Ed. Mario Santoro. Turin: UTET, 1989. – Opere minori. Ed. Cesare Segre. Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1954. – Opere minori. Ed. Aldo Vallone. Milan: Rizzoli, 1964. – The Satires of Ludovico Ariosto: A Renaissance Autobiography. Trans. Peter DeSa Wiggins. Athens, Ohio: Ohio UP, 1976. Bembo, Pietro. Della historia vinitiana di M. Pietro Bembo Card. Volgarmente scritta. Libri 12. Venice: Scotto, 1552. – Historiae venetae libri XII. Venice: Sons of Aldus, 1551. Boiardo, Matteo Maria. Opere volgari. Ed. Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo. Bari: Laterza, 1962. Brasavola, Antonio Musa. Antonii Musae Brasavoli medici ferrariensis Examen omnium electuariorum, pulverum, et confectinum catharcticoum … Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1548. Calcagnini, Celio. Equitatio. In Caelii Calcagnini ferrariensis, protonotarii apostolici, opera aliquot …. Ed. Antonio Musa Brasavola. Basel: Froben, 1544. 558–90. – ‘Inventario dei libri di Celio Calcagnini.’ In Archivio Calcagnini. Busta 95. Archivio di Stato, Modena. Delle lettere da diversi re, et principi, et cardinali, et altri huomini dotti a Mons. Pietro Bembo ... Venice: Sansovino, 1560. Includes Ariosto’s letter 190. Giovio, Paolo. Liber de vita et rebus gestis Alfonsi Atestini ferrariae principis. A Paulo Iovio conscriptus. Florence: Torrentino, 1550. Giraldi, Giovanni Battista. Commentario delle cose di Ferrara, et de’ Principi da Este di M. Giovambattista Giraldi … tratto dell’Epitome di M. Gregorio Giraldi. Trans.Lodovico Domenichi. Venice: Giovanni de’ Rossi, [1556]. Guicciardini, Francesco. Storia d’Italia. Ed. Costantino Panigada. 4 vols. Bari: Laterza, 1929. Leoniceno, Nicolò. Nicolai Leoniceni Vicentini De Plinii, & plurium aliorum medicorum in medicina erroribus opus primum Angelo politiano dedicatum. Ferrara: Giovanni Mazzocchi, 1509. – Nicolai Leoniceni Vicentini, philosophi & medici clarissimi, opuscula … Basel: Cratander and Bebel, l532. Leopardi, Giacomo. Crestomazia italiana. La prosa. Ed. Giulio Bollati. Turin: Einaudi, 1968. Ludovico Ariosto. Documenti. Immagini. Fortuna Critica. Ed. Gino Badini. Rome: Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, Dipartimento per l’informazione e l’editoria, [1992?].

310

Bibliography

Manardi, Giovanni. Ioannis Manardi medici ferrariensis, hac aetate omnium medicinae professorum per universam Italiam, in Galeni doctrina & Arabum censura celeberrimi, & optime meriti, epistolarum medicinalium libri duodeviginti …. Basel: Cratander and Bebel, 1535. Pistofilo, Bonaventura. Vita di Alfonso I D’Este. Ed. Antonio Cappelli. In Atti e memorie delle rr. deputazioni di storia patria per le provincie modenesi e parmensi. Vol. 3. Modena: Vincenzi, 1865. 481–554. Recapiti spettanti a Lodovico Ariosto e sua famiglia. Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna. Manuscript B 315. Sforza, Giovanni, ed. Documenti inediti per servire alla vita di Ludovico Ariosto. In Monumenti di storia patria delle provincie modenesi. Vol. 22. Modena: Società Tipografica Modenese, 1926. Svevo, Italo. Romanzi. Ed. Giovanna Ioli. Turin: UTET, 1993. – ‘Ariosto governatore.’ In Teatro e saggi. Ed. Federico Bertoni. Milan: Mondadori, 2004. 771–5, 1571–4. Vergil. Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I–VI. Aeneid VII–XII. Trans. H. Rushton Fairclough; rev. G.P. Goold. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard UP, 1999–2000. Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca. 5th ed. 11 vols. Florence: Tipografia Galileiana, 1863–1923.

Criticism Agnelli, Giuseppe, and Giuseppe Ravegnani. Annali delle edizioni ariostee. 2 vols. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1933. Ascoli, Albert Russell. Ariosto’s Bitter Harmony: Crisis and Evasion in the Italian Renaissance, Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1987. Bacchelli, Franco. ‘Antonio Musa Brasavola Archiatra di Ercole II Duca di Ferrara.’ Micrologus 16 (2008): 327–46. – ‘Appunti sulla formazione culturale e religiosa di Alberto Pio.’ In Alberto III e Rodolfo Pio da Carpi. Collezionisti e mecenati. Atti del seminario internazionale di studi. Carpi, 22 e 23 novembre 2002. Ed. Manuela Rossi. Tavagnacco: Arti Grafiche Friulane, 2004. 177–94. – ‘Magia e astrologia a Ferrara tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento.’ In Il Rinascimento. Situazioni e personaggi. Ed. Adriano Prosperi. Vol. 6. Storia di Ferrara. 7 vols. Ferrara: Corbo, 2000. 6: 231–250. Baker, Stewart A., and A. Bartlett Giamatti, eds. Orlando Furioso. Trans. William Stewart Rose. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968. Bertoni, Giulio. L’Orlando Furioso e la Rinascenza a Ferrara. Modena: Orlandini, 1919.

311

Bibliography

Binni, Walter. ‘Le Lettere e le Satire dell’Ariosto.’ In Metodo e poesia di Ludovico Ariosto. Ed. Rosanna Alhaique Pettinelli. Scandicci: La Nuova Italia, 1996. 275–328. Bonifazi, Neuro. Le lettere infideli. Rome: Officina, 1975. Burrow, Colin. Epic Romance: Homer to Milton. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. Capparoni, Pietro. ‘L’Erbolato. Discorso reclame per un medico ciarlatano fatto da Ludovico Ariosto.’ Bollettino Storico Italiano dell’Arte Sanitaria 25/4 (1926). Rpt. Rome: Istituto Nazionale Medico Farmacologico ‘Serono’, 1926. Cappelli, Antonio. ‘Due lettere inedite di Ludovico Ariosto.’ In Atti e Memorie di RR. Deputazioni di storia patria per le Provincie Modenesi e Parmensi 1 (1863): 104–5. Carrara, Daniela Mugnai. La biblioteca di Nicolò Leoniceno. Tra Aristotele e Galeno: cultura e libri di un medico umanista. Florence: Olschki, 1991. Catalano, Michele. Vita di Ludovico Ariosto. 2 vols. Geneva: Olschki, 1930–1. – ‘Madonna Alessandra.’ In L’Ottava d’oro. 809–33. Cerlini, Aldo. ‘Scrittura e punteggiatura negli autografi dell’Ariosto.’ Cultura Neolatina 4/5 (1944–5): 37–60. Croce, Benedetto. Ariosto, Shakespeare e Corneille. 3rd ed. Bari: Laterza, 1944. Dorigatti, Marco. ‘Il manoscritto dell’Orlando furioso (1505–1515).’ In L’uno e l’altro Ariosto in Corte e nelle Delizie. Florence: Olschki, forthcoming. 1–32. Edler, Florence. Glossary of Medieval Terms of Business: Italian Series 1200– 1600. Cambridge, Mass: Medieval Academy of America, 1934. Fatini, Giuseppe. ‘Ludovico Ariosto prosatore.’ Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 65 (1915): 304–46. Ferroni, Giulio. Ariosto. Rome: Salerno, 2008. – ‘Nota sull’Erbolato.’ La Rassegna della letteratura italiana 79 (1975): 202–14. Folin, Marco. Rinascimento Estense. Politica, cultura, istituzioni di un antico Stato italiano. Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2001. Fowler, H.W. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Ed. Sir Ernest Gowers. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1965. Gardner, Edmund G. The King of Court Poets: A Study of the Work, Life and Times of Lodovico Ariosto. 1906. New York: Haskell, 1968. Garin, Eugenio. La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano. Florence: Sansoni, 1961. – ‘Guarino veronese e la cultura a Ferrara.’ In Ritratti di umanisti. Florence: Sansoni, 1967. 69–106. Gliozzi, Giuliano. ‘Antonio Musa Brasavola.’ Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Rome: Treccani, 1972. 14: 51–3.

312

Bibliography

Gundersheimer, Werner. Ferrara: The Style of a Renaissance Despotism. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973. Horne, P.R. ‘Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Ferrara: A. Musa Brasavola and Giraldi Cinthio.’ Italian Studies 13 (1958): 65–76. Jossa, Stefano. Ariosto. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2009. Kolsky, Stephen. ‘Italo Svevo and Mario Equicola: A Strange Encounter.’ MLN 102 (1987): 128–40. Looney, Dennis. Compromising the Classics: Romance Epic Narrative in the Italian Renaissance. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1996. – ‘Marvelous Vergil in the Sixteenth Century.’ In Blackwell’s Companion to the Aeneid. Ed. Joseph Farrell and Michael Putnam. Oxford: Blackwell, 2010. – ‘Le postille al codice del volgarizzamento di Erodoto di Matteo Maria Boiardo, Biblioteca Estense, Modena, α.H.3.22.’ In Hérodote à la Renaissance. Ed. Susanna Gambino Longo and Laurence Boulègue. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, forthcoming. Lovarini, Emilio. ‘Il titolo dell’Erbolato dell’Ariosto.’ Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana 108 (1936): 74–9, 375. Malaguti, Antonio. ‘Maestro Antonio Faentino e Ludovico Ariosto.’ In Per le nozze di Augusto Campana e Rosetta Fabi XXIX Aprile MCMXXXIII. Faenza: Fratelli Lega, 1933. 65–79. Martines, Lauro. Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968. Marzio, Cornelio di. ‘L’Ariosto diplomatico.’ In L’Ottava d’oro. 777–808. Migliorini, Livio. ‘L’Ariosto e la Garfagnana. Notizie storiche.’ Atti e Memorie della Deputazione Ferrarese di Storia Patria 15 (1904): 31–64. Nauert, Charles G., Jr. ‘Humanists, Scientists, and Pliny: Changing Approaches to a Classical Author.’ American Historical Review 84 (1979): 72–85. Olivieri, Dante. Dizionario di toponomastica lombarda. Milan: Ceschina, 1961. L’Ottava d’oro: la vita e l’opera di Ludovico Ariosto. Milan: Mondadori, 1933. Palmer, Richard. ‘The Pharmacy in the Republic of Venice in the Sixteenth Century.’ In Andrew Wear, ed. The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985. 100–17. Prandi, Stefano. ‘Premesse umanistiche del Furioso: Ariosto, Calcagnini e il silenzio (O.F. XIV, 78–97).’ Lettere Italiane 58/1 (2006): 1–32. Rajna, Pio. Le fonti dell’Orlando Furioso. 1876. 1900. Florence: Sansoni, 1975. Ronchi, Gabriella. ‘Note sull’Erbolato.’ In In ricordo di Cesare Angelini. Ed. Franco Alessio and Angelo Stella. Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1979. 185–94. Sangirardi, Giuseppe. Ludovico Ariosto. Florence: Le Monnier, 2006.

313

Bibliography

Santoro, Mario. ‘L’Erbolato o la mercificazione della cultura.’ In Ariosto e il Rinascimento. Naples: Liguori, 1989. 365–78. Sapegno, Natalino. ‘Ludovico Ariosto.’ Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 4 (1962): 172–88. Savarese, Gennaro. ‘Il progetto del poema tra Marsilio Ficino e “adescatrici galliche.”’ In Il Furioso e la cultura del Rinascimento. Rome: Bulzoni, 1984. 15–37. Siraisi, Nancy. Avicenna in Renaissance Italy: The Canon and Medical Teaching in Italian Universities after 1500. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987. – Medicine and the Italian Universities, 1250–1600. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Thorndike, Lynn. Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Vol. 4 of A History of Magic and Experimental Science. New York: Columbia UP, 1934. Vasoli, Cesare. ‘Cittadini, Antonio.’ Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Rome: Treccani, 1982. 26: 66–71. – ‘Gli astri e la corte (l’astrologia a Ferrara nell’età ariostesca).’ In La cultura delle corti. Bologna: Cappelli, 1980. 129–58. Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca. 5th ed. 11 vols. Florence: Tipografia Galileiana, 1905. Wickham, C.J. The Mountains and the City: The Tuscan Appennines in the Early Middle Ages. Oxford and New York: Clarendon P /Oxford UP, 1988. Zatti, Sergio. The Quest for Epic. Ed. Dennis Looney. Trans. Sally Hill with Dennis Looney. Intro. Albert Russell Ascoli. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2006.

314

Table of Recipients

Recipients of Ariosto’s letters are in alphabetical order (keyed to letter numbers). Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, 21, 34, 39, 41, 52, 55–6, 64–6, 72, 76–7, 81, 83–4, 92–3, 97–99, 101–3, 108–10, 125–7, 129–30, 135–7, 139–40, 143–4, 150, 155–8, 160–1, 163 Barga, captain of, 82 Barga, judge of, 30 Belingerio, Ruffino, Estense representative in Milan, 20 (ghostwritten for Ippolito) Bembo, Pietro, humanist, 190 Calandra, Giovan Iacomo, secretary to the Duke of Mantua, 198 Equicola, Mario, secretary to Isabella d’Este Gonzaga, 26, 29 Fantino, Benedetto, secretary to Ippolito, 10, 14 Florence, Eight on Foreign Affairs, 37, 43, 59, 104–6, 115, 166–7, 176 Fregoso, Ottavio, Doge of Genoa, 17 Giovanni de’ Medici, Cardinal Legate, subsequently Pope Leo X, 11, 27 Gonzaga, Federico, Marquis of Mantua, 193, 196, 199, 202, 210 Gonzaga, Francesco II, Marquis of Mantua, 12, 15 (ghostwritten for Ippolito), 22, 23 Gonzaga, Ludovico, 13 Gonzaga, Margherita Paleologa, Duchess of Mantua, 212 Gritti, Andrea, Doge of Venice, 187 Guizardino, Nicolò, Florentine commissioner of Fivizzano, 51

Table of Recipients

Ippolito d’Este, Cardinal, 3–9 Isabella d’Este Gonzaga, Marquise of Mantua, 19, 24, 211 Leo X, Pope, formerly Giovanni de’ Medici, 11, 27 Loredan, Lorenzo, Doge of Venice, 16 Lucca, Elders of, 31–3, 35–6, 38, 40, 44–5, 48–50, 53–4, 57–8, 60–3, 67–71, 73–5, 79–80, 85–6, 88–90, 94–6, 100, 107, 111–14, 116–24, 131–4, 138, 141–2, 145–7, 149, 152–4, 159, 162, 164–5, 168–75, 177–86 Ludovico da Fabriano, Estense agent in Rome, 2 (ghostwritten for Ippolito) Manuzio, Aldo, humanist, book publisher, and bookseller, 1 Nicolò de’ Conti, relative of Ariosto, 28 Pallai, Biagio, secretary to Pope Clement VII, 188 Pandolfini, Lorenzo, Judge in Barga, 87 Pistofolo, Bonaventura, ducal secretary to Alfonso, 127–8 Remo, Obizo, ducal secretary to Alfonso, 42, 46–7 Rovere, de la, Guido Baldo Feltrio, Duke of Urbino, 213 Rucellai, Nicolò, Florentine captain, 91 Sacrati, Ettore, captain of Reggio, 151 Santuccio, judge in Lucca, 78 Strozzi, Antonio, relative of Alessandra Benucci Strozzi, 25 Strozzi, Giovan Francesco, relative of Alessandra Benucci Strozzi, Ariosto’s wife, 189, 192, 194–5, 197, 200–1, 203–5, 207–9, 214; letters ghostwritten for Alessandra, 189, 192, 205, 207, 214 Strozzi, Lucia, mother of Giovan Francesco Strozzi, 206 (letter written in the name of Alessandra Benucci Strozzi) Tassone, Nicolò, da Este, Estense ambassador in Milan, 191 Unidentified recipient, 18 (ghostwritten for Ippolito), 148 Urso, Scipione, secretary to Ippolito, 10

316

General Index

The General Index is keyed to page numbers. Acconcio, 86, 118–21, 129, 170–2, 201, 208, 221, 302n164, 303n174 Achates, 18 Adria, 27 Aeneas, 17–19 Aeneid, 14, 16–19 Albinello, Ludovico, 191 Amboise, Carlo d’, Monsignor, 32, 34–5, 293n14 Anselmo de’ Conti, 45 Antonio da Cento, 150 Antonio da Soraggio, Father, 106–7, 210 Antonio di Mercatello, 122, 132, 145 Apollo, 281 Apollonius of Tyana, 281, 307n9 Appennines, xii, 57 Arabia, 281, 306n8 Ariosto, Francesco, 25–7 Ariosto, Galasso, 37, 53, 96 Ariosto, Ludovico: Alessandra’s secretary, 8, 241, 262, 265, 271; courtier, 8, 14, 23, 47; fear of murder, 127; his house, 3; his illness, 248–9; his job, 183–7; justice, his friend, 216; literary agent, 55–6; shipper, 45–6; the vernacular Vergil, 14

Ariosto, Rinaldo/Rainaldo, 15, 40, 49–50, 294n34; Manfredo as Rinaldo, 25–7 Ariosto, Virginio, 244, 246, 294n28, 295n50, 303n180, 304n198 Asclepius, 275, 280, 283, 306n4 Ascoli, Albert Russell, 13 Attolini family, 123 Augustino da Villa, 148 Avicenna, 281, 290n10, 307n12 Baccio da la Masa, 155–6, 158 Baccio del Fava, 98 Badino, Este captain, 33–4 Baglioni, Giovanni Paolo, 30, 292n7 bail, 79, 128, 237, 239 Baker, Stewart A., 13, 311 Baldassari da Montecatini, 97–8 Baldone, an unidentified bandit, 110–12 Balduccio da Careggine, 78, 89 Balkans, 283 bandits, 6, 59, 61, 69–72, 76–7, 80–5, 97–104, 108, 110–11, 113–19, 124–6, 131, 135–6, 138–9, 148, 150, 153–4, 156–7, 159–60, 163, 166, 172–3, 175–6, 180–1, 185, 188–93, 195–6, 204, 207–8,

Index

210–15, 218–22, 225–6, 231–4, 297n68, 298n79, 301n149 Baptista di Giovanni Andrea da Saxi, 231 Barca, 130, l39–40 Bardelone, Gian Iacomo, 55, 296n52 Barga, 59–60, 66, 70, 73, 84, 95, 100, 111, 123–4, 129, 139, 141, 149, 155–7, 174–5, 177, 192, 214, 216, 225 Baricha, Iohan, 59–60 Barone and Corsetto da Vagli, 224 Barotti, Giovanni Andrea, 13 Bartolino da Corfino, 139 Bartolomeo da Barga, 66–7, 73–5 Bartolomeo, Father, 215 Bastia, 217, 222 Belgrado da Vallico, 60–1, 107, 110, 120, 128, 165, 168–9, 237, 239 Bembo, Pietro, 5, 7, 16, 241, 246 benefices, 38, 47, 105–6, 244, 293–4nn27–8, 304n181 Benjamin the Jew, 26 Benucci, Alessandra (Strozzi), ix, 8–9, 241, 245–6, 249–53, 258–63, 265–7, 271, 294n28, 304n182, 305n205 Bernardello da Pontecchio, 79, 100, 119, 162–3, 176, 185, 189–91, 232 Bernardino d’Airasa, 68, 296n62 Bernardino da le Doccie, 219 Bertacca, Lorenzo, 124 Bertagnetta da Pontecchio, 100–1, 119 Bertoni, Giulio, xiii, 293n24, 296n61 Betto Cartolaro, 233 Bigo da Imola, 206 Binni, Walter, 19, 312 bishops, 46–7, 106–7, 118, 192, 238–9

Boiardo, Giovanni, 36, 293n21 Boiardo, Matteo Maria, 5–6, 17, 39, 289n3, 294n31, 306–7n8 bond, 79, 128, 161, 163, 171–2, 237, 239 Borgo, 60–1, 94, 173, 181, 198, 223, 229, 235, 236 Brasavola, Antonio Musa, 10, 290n9, 308n18 Brugia, Benedetto, 30, 292n5; Teodosio, 28, 37, 292n4, 293n26 bull, papal, 38 Buonconvento, 66–7, 73–4 Burrow, Colin, 18 Calandra, Gian Giacomo (Giovan Iacomo), 53, 255, 295n47, 296n52 Calcagnini family, 263 Calcagnini, Celio, 10, 12, 290n9, 291n13, 307n12 Calcano, Philippo da, 47–8 Camaiore, 63, 223 Cambrai, League of, 26 Camonchiela, Zan Francesco, 34 Campogaiano, 36 Camporgiano, 57, 63, 68, 70, 77–81, 88–9, 99–101, 103–4, 106, 111–12, 115, 118–20, 139, 144, 148, 151, 153–5, 159, 201–4, 209–11, 213, 215–20, 220, 222–4 Canossa, Ludovico da, 31, 293n11 Cantello, Giovan Giacomo, 126, 137, 142–3, 298n83 Capella, 134, 145, 147, 224 Cappelli, Antonio, xi, 289n1, 292n8, 298n78 caps, 112, 129, 262, 267 Cardoso, 94–5, 97, 107, 109, 205–6, 212–13 Carpi, 31–3, 266

318

Index

Casaia, Francesco, 93, 214–16 Casanova, Christophoro, da Sestola, 76, 213 Cascio, 75, 139 Casella, Matheo, 151 Cassola, Zan Baptista, 34 Castelfiorentino, 66–7, 74 Castelnuovo ne’ Monti, 137, 142, 212 Castelnuovo, 57, 59, 63–4, 70–1, 78–81, 82–3, 87–8, 91–2, 95–6, 99–101, 105–6, 109–12, 118, 123, 127, 137, 139–40, 142–3, 151, 155, 158, 164, 169, 175–6, 185–6, 195–9, 201–3, 208–9, 211–14, 216, 223 Castiglione, 61, 65, 96, 108, 167, 169–70, 181–2, 187, 194, 209, 223–4, 226–7, 234, 238 cattle, 33 Catucio, Bastiano, 71, 297n67 Cecarello, 175, 185 Cesarini, Cardinal, 27–8 Ceserana, 70–1, 83, 110–12, 125, 135–7, 150, 154, 157, 175, 186, l91, 193, 195–6, 214 Charlemagne, 3 cheese, 157–8 chestnuts, 5, 75, 168–70, 174, 178–9, 181–3, 187, 193–5, 235–6, 301n140 Chiron, 281 Christ/God, 15, 40, 75, 90, 92, 96, 116, 146, 187, 203, 209–10, 244, 246–8, 251, 256, 277–8, 280, 285–7 Christophoro di Luca da Dezza, 231 Cibo/Cybo, Innocenzo, Cardinal, 96 Cicero, 5 Ciciorana, 172 Cittadini, Antonio, 9, 290n9, 314

cloth, clothes, clothing, 37, 41, 123, 129–30, 139, 263, 307n11 clothing, used figuratively, 41, 64, 118, 277 Coffer, The (La Cassaria), 48–9, 255, 269, 304n199 Coglia (Girolamo da Sestola), 267, 305n213 Coiaio, Bastiano, 63, 70–1, 76–8, 81, 85, 112, 160–1, 177, 179, 186–7, 218–19, 296n58, 300n133 Coietto, 225 collar, 129, 207, 265 Collenuccio, Pandolfo, 11 Colognora, 199 constable, 83, 98, 139, 141, 150, 172, 181, 192, 205, 223, 234 Contardo, Simone, 79, 297n75, 301n136, 302nn162–3 Contarina [Farnese] Ariosto, 49–50 Conto dei Contadini, 13 Corbino da Colomini, 233–4 Coreglia, 108, 195, 236–7 Cornacchia (Bosatello), 202, 204–5, 208, 212, 221, 303n168 Cornaro, Marco, Cardinal, 31 Cornelius Celsus, 281, 307n12 Correggio, Borso da, 32, 292n17 Costa da Pontecchio, 99, 111, 144, 149–50, 162 Costabili, Antonio de’, 29–30 Costantino, Ser, notary, 78, 155, 201, 203–4, 209 counterfeiter, 82 crime, 6, 57, 61, 65, 78, 80, 84–5, 104, 114, 118, 129, 138–40, 156–7, 159, 161–2, 165–6, 172, 180, 202, 225, 231–4 crimes, book of, 191 Croce, Benedetto, 5–6, 291n13

319

Index

Dallo, 116, 150, 154 Dante, 17, 19, 292n21, 294n31 Demodocus, 18 Dido, 17 Dioscorides, 281 disease, used figuratively, 71, 96, 115, 138, 146, 150, 233 Doge, 5; of Genoa, 44, 293n11; of Venice, 43, 243–4 dogs, 15, 28, 40 Domenico d’Amorotto, 79, 90–1, 116, 137, 142–3, 150, 297n69 Donatello da Sommacolonia, 123, 158, l72, 175, 189, 192, 195, 211–12, 219 donkeys, 5, 169, 182–3, 187, 238 Doria, Andrea, 68, 296n62 Dovizi, Bernardo (Bibbiena), 41, 295n39 dowries, 51, 93–4, 130–1, 167, 245, 250–1, 253, 257, 301n140 dresses, 260–5, 305n209 Druids, 281 duelling, 27–9

Este, Alberto d’, 285 Este, Alfonso I d’ (excluding letters to him), 16–18, 23, 40, 57, 105, 109, 113, 188, 213, 229, 270, 283, 290n9, 291n16, 292n5, 292n20, 297n69, 297n73, 301n148, 303n175 Este, Ercole di Sigismodo, 36, 293n22 Este, Ercole I d’, 123, 132, 285 Este, Ercole II d’, 77, 145, 270, 297n73, 308n18 Este, House of, 3, 5–6, 29, 101, 285, 294n31 Este, Ippolito d’ (excluding letters to him), 4, 16, 23, 25, 38, 42, 45–6, 292n4, 292n8 Este, Isabella d’ (Gonzaga), 39, 45, 49–50, 268, 294n30, 294n31, 295n45, 295n47 Este, Rinaldo d’, 285 Este, Sigismondo d’, 285 Ethiopia, 281, 306n8 Evangelista dal Sillico, 71, 77, 85, 221 Evangelista dal Vallico, 105–6, 108, 118 executions, 68, 89, 102, 209

Edler, Florence, xii, 298n81 Egypt, 281, 283, 306n8 elixir, 11, 275–6, 285, 287–8, 308n18 Emperor, Holy Roman, 29, 300n120 epic genre, 14, 16–19, 296n63 Epicureans, 281 Equicola, Mario, 12, 52–3, 55–6, 295n45 Este court, 11, 23, 25, 37–8, 43, 47, 72, 243, 293n25, 295n45, 305n213

Fabbriche, 122, 132, 145, 147, 200, 229 fairs, markets, 76, 163–4, 177–8, 198 faith, 6, 44, 50, 75–6, 79, 86–7, 90, 114, 124, 128, 164, 174, 181, 184, 198, 205, 224, 298n81 fans, 264 Faventino, Antonio, 9, 12, 274–5, 283, 290n9 Ferdiano, Ser, 71, 80, 110, 214

customs officials, customs fees, 42, 45, 112, 120–1, 127, 171, 194, 236, 249, 252, 299n98, 300n25

320

Index

Ferrara, not including references to travellers coming and going, 3, 16, 26–7, 30, 57, 81, 153, 197, 269–70, 275–6, 280, 282, 290n11, 291n12, 305n215, 306n8 Ferroni, Giulio, 13 Ficino, Marsilio, 10, 25 Fini, Daniele, 12 fire, 35, 100, 104, 111, 115, 117, 119, 142, 149, 189, 192–3, 289n1, 298n78 fire, used figuratively, 120–1, 162 Fivizzano, 70, 84, 101, 166, 176, 216, 222, 232 floods, 251, 256–7 Florence, xii, 8–9, 15–16, 19, 40–1, 47–8, 59, 66, 124, 140–1, 163, 261, 264, 290n10 Fornovo, 174 Fosdinovo, 217, 222 Fowler, H.W., xii France, King of, 29, 44–5 Francesco di Biagio di Gigrò, 157 Franciscans, 52, 95, 129 Francolino, Giovanni, 77 Frassanoro, 126 Frassinoro, 90, 137, 203 freedom, 6, 79, 84, 141, 163, 208, 298n77 French troops, 16, 32–5, 57, 63, 141, 143, 208, 214–15, 230, 293n19, 296n60, 296n62, 303n167 friars, 52, 210, 226–8, 257 Frignano, 85, 101, 103–4, 117, 138, 143–4, 150, 153, 162, 174, 190–1, 193 Fulgoso, Octaviano, 31, 293n11, 295n41 Fusari, Giovanni, 38, 294nn27–8

Galen, 281, 285, 307n12 Gallicano 75, 120, 139–41, 150, 180, 198, 200 Garfagnana, xii, 5–7, 9, 13, 23, 57–240, 290n7, 291n13, 294n29, 296n55, 296n58, 297n73, 297n75, 298n81, 299n95, 300nn120–1 Gello, 122, 132, 142, 145, 147, 229 Geminiano di Christophoro da Riccovolto, 195, 236 Genese, 79, 161, 177, 188–90, 193, 301n135 Genoa, 44, 68, 78, 293n11, 296n62, 297n74, 303n176 Ghibelline, 57 Giamatti, A. Bartlett, 13 gifts, 28, 38, 181, 187, 254, 268, 270, 275, 278–80, 283–4, 286–8, 306n6 Giovanni da Montepulciano, 97–8, 110, 164 Giovanni da Sant’Anastasio, 181–2 Giovannino dalle Bande Nere, 200–4, 206, 208, 210, 215, 217, 219, 222, 303n167 Giraldi, Lilio Gregorio, 12 Giugliano dal Sillico, 110, 124–5, 135–6 Giuliano Grigò, 156–8 goats, 142, 213, 238 Gonzaga, Federico, 249, 252, 254, 258, 267, 290n8, 304n192, 308n15 Gonzaga, Francesco II, 39, 42, 48–9, 294n30 Gonzaga, Ludovico, 14–17, 40 Gonzaga, Margherita Paleologo, 268 Gorfigliano, 165 Gragnanella, 78, 163, 215 grain, 27, 34–5, 91, 139, 149, 171, 178–9

321

Index

Granduccio, Achille, 88, 146, 190–1, 300n18 Grassi, Paride, 41, 294n38 Greece, 281, 283 greyhounds, 15, 40 Gualenga, Beatrice, 261 Guassello, Bernardo, 238 Guelf, 57 Guicciardini, Francesco, 16, 292n20 Guidone, Francesco, 126 Gundersheimer, Werner, xii gunpowder, 211 Gymnosophists, 281, 307n11 Hampe, Theodor, 274 health, used figuratively, 71, 76, 87, 126, 150, l85, 210, 221; physical health, 199, 244, 246, 263, 266, 279–81, 284–8 hemp, 154 Herodotus, 306n8 Hieronimo da Castiglione, 222, 234–5 Hippocrates, 285 honorifics, xi–xii honour (and shame), 63, 183–4, 188–90, 229; honour, 253, 282, 287 hornets, 142 horses, horseback, 12, 76, 85, 102, 105, 112, 116–17, 120, 133, 146, 150, 155, 164, 178–9, 204, 228, 266, 270, 274, 278 humanists, humanism, 8–12, 14, 19, 23, 25, 290nn9–11, 291n13, 292n1, 293n16, 295n45, 306n5, 307n12, 308n17 Iacomello, Santo, 217, 220 Iacomo da Molazana, 238

Iacomo di Pasino, 218 Iacopino da Convalle, 93–4 Iacopo da Castiglione, 108 Iliad, 19 illness, 11, 49, 221, 259–60, 262–3, 277, 279, 282–3, 286–7, 307n8 India, 281, 306n8, 307n11 invention, literary, 39, 294n31, 304n203 Ioanni Baptista da Sassuolo, 131 Isola Santa, 78 Isualli, Piero, Cardinal, 30, 292n6 Italian forces, 99, 101, 162, 187, 203, 208, 214, 221, 296n60 jackasses, used figuratively, 68 Jews, 26, 29, 250–2, 271 Job, Father, 106, 118 joke, 37 judges, 30, 59, 62–4, 68, 87–9, 92, 118, 120, 129, 140, 153, 155, 157, 167, 186, 190, 193, 206–7, 209, 220, 222, 296n53, 298n86, 300n133, 302n153, 302n155, 303n173 justice, 6, 26, 46, 61, 64, 67, 74, 77, 80–4, 89–90, 97–8, 111, 130, 132, 136–7, 140, 142, 153, 164–5, 167, 171–2, 180, 182, 187, 189, 205, 210, 223–8, 232, 234, 237, 239, 290n7, 298n77; justice as Ariosto’s friend, 216 kerchiefs, 188 knife, 160 Latin, xi–xii, 3, 5, 7, 11–12, 14, 17, 19, 23, 25, 290n10, 292n19, 293n27, 306nn3–4

322

Index

Lavelli, Pietro de’, 123 laws, 64, 67, 82–3, 140, 288 lawyers, xii, 50, 64, 74, 134, 144, 146–7, 152, 202, 297n68 Lena (La Lena), 269, 304n200, 305n215 Lendenara, 260 Leoardo da San Romano, 88 Leoniceno (Nicolò da Lonigo), 10, 11, 276, 290nn8–11, 297n69, 306n5, 308n17 Leopardi, Giacomo, 13 letters, delivery, 38, 42, 64, 75, 77–8, 94, 96–7, 115, 136–7, 140, 144, 148, 151, 155, 164–5, 167–9, 171, 174–5, 179, 181–2, 187, 194, 196, 198–9, 206–7, 219, 222, 224–5, 236, 250, 254, 258, 260, 262–3, 267, 269, 294n29 letters, seals on, 114, 253, 303n170 lies, 7, 112, 174, 186, 248 lion (and rabbit), used figuratively, 143 livestock, 33, 109, 112, 137, 145, 208, 299n98 Livorno, 68 Lombards, 6, 65, 80, 99, 100–2, 121, 125, 136–8, 143, 149–50, 154, 157, 169, 174, 178–9, 182–3, 282, 299n99, 300n123, 301n145, 302n164, 304n188 Looney, Dennis, 292n23, 305n1, 307n8 Lucca, 9, 57, 60, 63, 86, 90, 96–7, 112, 115, 120–2, 128–32, 147, 151–3, 171–2, 176, 194, 197, 217, 222, 228–30, 238–9, 298n85, 299n98, 299n106 Luchino di Paolo d’Ochi, 225

Luni, l06–7, 118 Lunigiana, 78, 84, 216–17, 219 Lunisana, 204 Lupinaia, 83 Machiavellian, 6 Madalena family, 161–3, 165–6, 176–7, 189, 202, 204, 208, 218, 221, 301n134 Magi, 281 Magnano, Battistino, 59, 70, 100, 162–3, 176, 185, 189, 208–9, 211–12, 218, 221, 223, 296n55 Magnano, Bernardello, 100, 119, 162–3, 176, 185, 189–91, 232 Magnano, Pierino, 63, 72–3, 76–7, 81, 91, 175, 186, 191, 201, 208, 212, 214, 216, 296n58 Maitina, Marino da la, 28–9 Malaspina, Antonio, 119 Malaspina, Ricciarda, Marquise of Massa, 147, 300n119 Malborghetto, 63 Malmignatto, Hercule, 260 Mancuccio, Barone and Gian, 216 Manfredi, 36 Mantua, 12, 16, 46, 53, 241, 251, 254, 267, 269, 275, 282, 295n45, 296n52 Manuzio, Aldo, 8–9, 25, 292n1 maps (images): Northern Italy, 22; Po Valley, 24; Garfagnana, 58 Maremma, 68, 149, 155, 198 Margutte da Camporgiano, 112, 159, 218, 223 Mariani, Bartolomeo and Girolamo, 236 Marighella, Marco, 26 Martines, Lauro, xii, 313

323

Index

Martino, Father, da Vergemoli, 238–9 Martino, Francesco, 67–8 Massa, 147, 156–8, 182, 194, 204 Massimiliano [Stampa], 247 Matheo, Father, 89, 106, 118 Mazzoni, Matheo, 123, 225 Medici, House of, 38, 41, 47–8, 53, 175–6, 291n18, 294n33, 295n43, 301n143, 303n167 Mengaldo, Pier Vincenzo, 6, 289n3 mercenaries, 66, 73–4, 303n167 merchants, merchandise, 45, 119, 194, 230, 250, 270, 306n7 Merlin, 17 Mesino dal Forno, 126 Messore, Zan Iacomo, 34 Mesue, 281, 307n12 Michele, Father, 217, 226–7 Micotto, Tomaso, 62, 87, 185–7, 296n58–9, 302n155 Milan, 45–7, 106, 118, 178, 247, 282, 295n42, 304n187 Minucciano, 139, 159 Minuzzo, 206 mistresses, 51, 105 Modena, 9, 31, 87, 113, 126, 138, 174, 201, 252, 266, 297n73 Montefiorino, 103, 201, 203, 206–7 Morello, Pier, 151–2, 196–7, 300n125 Morgante Demino/del Tino, 201–2, 204 Moro dal Sillico, 70, 85, 110–12, 123–5, 135–7, 154, 174, 190, 196, 299n107, 300n111 Moro del Pazaglia, 225 Mosco, Demetrio, 12 Motrone, 237, 239 mules, 51, 64, 70–1, 79

murder, 70–1, 79–80, 98–9, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114–16, 118, 125, 139, 154–5, 157, 161, 163, 165–6, 176–7, 188, 191, 202, 204, 208, 217, 221, 226–7, 232, 234, 245, 301n135 muse, 4, 31, 289n1 mushrooms, 103 musket, 101–2, 134, 146, 174, 201, 204, 208, 213, 215, 218–19, 223 Naples, 282 Nasello, Girolamo, 180, 301n148 Nasello, Giuliano, 244, 304n188 Necromancer, The (Il Negromante), 11, 53–4, 269, 295n48, 304n200, 305n215 Neoplatonism, 9–11, 290n9 news: bad, 28–9, 36, 69, 86, 89–90, 155–7, 163, 175–6, 256; good, 4, 31, Nicolò Giusti da Pescaglia, Giovanni di, 64–5 Nonantula, 27–9 notaries, 64, 146 nuns, 78, 95, 129, 226–8, 245, 297n74 Odysseus, 18–19 Odyssey, 18–19 Ogno, 193 Olivo/Ulivo and Nicolao da Pontecchio, 177, 202, 204, 208, 221 opportunity, 117, 176, 212, 276, 288, 299n102, 308n20 Orlando Furioso, 3–8, 12–14, 19–20, 23–30, 39, 43–4, 52–3, 55, 133, 241, 243–7, 249, 253–4, 267–8,

324

Index

291n11, 293n25, 294n31, 295n41, 295nn44–5, 295n47, 296n52, 297n70, 304n192, 305n209, 306n8, 308n17 oxen, 35, 112, 123–4, 130, 139 Pacchioni, 149 Pachione, Philippo, 100 Padua, 45, 246–50, 262 Pallai, Biagio, 244–5 paper, 7, 42, 232, 249–50, 252 pardons, 79, 84–5, 88–9, 105, 107, 111, 117, 124–6, 137, 170, 182, 191, 202, 208, 221, 228 parva sed apta mihi, 3–4 Paulino da Molazana, 233–4 Pellegrino dal Sillico, 83, 124, 149, 175, 185 Pencaro, Giovanni, 307n8 Peregrino da Corfino, 115 Peripatetics, 281 Perpoli, Mount, 172 Pescia, 174 Petrapania, 146 Petrarch, 5 petticoats, 264–5 Pianelli, Count, 14–15, 40 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 10, 292n8 Pico della Mirandola, Ludovico, 30, 292n8 Pier Andrea da Verni, 180 Piero Antonio [Torelli], 48 Pierotti, Giovanni, 199 Pietrasanta, 84, 133–4, 141–2, 144–8, 174, 179, 204, 224–5 Pio, Aenea, 32–3, 293n13 Pio, Alberto, 25, 90–1, 292, 298n84 Pio, Marco, 269

Pirotto, Lucca, 162 Pisa, 68, 86, 115, 120–1, 124, 127, 148, 168, 174, 179, 194 Pisano, Iacomo degli Agostini, 151–3, 196, 300n126 Pistofilo, Bonaventura, 57, 73, 177, 251, 292n20, 296n57, 297nn69– 70, 301n148 Pistoia, 81, 173–5 Pitteri, Francesco, 13 plague, 75–6, 86–7, 91–2, 96, 198–9 Plato, 25, 281, 305n2 Pliny, 10, 11, 275, 277, 290n10, 291n11, 306n5, 307n12 Po River and Valley, 5, 22, 24, 27, 31, 251, 304n202 Poggibonsi, 66, 74 Poggio, l04, 112, 117, 125, 299n94 Polesella, Battle of, 4, 30, 292 Polinoro da Vallico, 174, 193 Poliziano, Angelo, 10–12, 290n11, 306n5 Pontecchio, 70, 76, 79, 99–101, 116, 119, 154, 163, 177, 202, 204, 221, 232 Pontecosi, l04 Ponticosi, 238 popes: Adrian VI, 174, 300n14; Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici), 48, 176, 210, 244, 295n43, 301n143; Julius II, 16, 30–1, 292n10, 294n38; Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici), 38, 40–1, 53, 291n18, 294n33, 294n38, 303n167, 305n215; papal court, 4, 31, 244, 295n49, 303n167; papal troops, 30–4, 40, 57, 298n89 Porphirio da Vallico, 193 Posti, Lorenzo de’, 31–2

325

Index

Postumo (Guido Silvestri), 36–7, 293n25 Pretaccio da Barga, 95, 298n85 Pretenders, The (I Suppositi), 269, 304n199 priests, 45, 91, 95–6, 105–7, 110–11, l18, 124–5, 154, 175, 189–91, 193, 196, 207, 209–10, 212, 214–15, 218, 226–7, 238–9, 297n75, 298n85, 302nn162–3, 303n173 profit, financial, 35, 88, 183–4, 208–9 Prosperi, Bartolomeo, 202, 303n169 Pythagoras, 281, 307n9 quack, 11–12; image of, 274 Quaro, 206 Quirino da Brissello, 72 rabbit (and lion), used figuratively, 143 radicchio, 299n92 Rangone, Guido, 174 ransom, 126, 163 Recano, 251, 260 Reggio, 31–6, 90–1, 138–9, 142, 174, 178–9, 201, 203, 206–7, 212, 218–19, 222, 230, 234, 297n73, 298n84, 300n123 Remo, Obizo, 57, 72, 76–8, 135, 178, 299n94 Rena, Paolo, 47–8 rescript, 44, 123, 136, 295n40, 299n104, 300n112 robbery, 50, 60–1, 64–5, 71, 85, 111, 123–5, 127, l29, 137, 141–3, 149, 155–6, 158, 163, 165, 173, 190, 204, 208–9, 218, 224, 226–7, 232, 255, 269

Roggio, 149 romance genre, 9, 12, 16–19, 296n63 Rome, 4, 16, 25, 28, 30, 32, 40–1, 44, 54, 141, 149, 193, 198, 282, 289n2, 295n50, 305n215 Ronchi, Gabriella, xiii, 12–13 Rossi, Ioanne Baptista de’, 167, 171 Rossi, Luigi de’, 48 Roveralla, Hieronymo, 26 Rovere, de la, Guido Baldo Feltrio, Duke of Urbino, 269 Rubera, 31–2; measurement standards in, 35 Rubiera, 174–5, 211 Sacrato, Ranaldo, 26 safe-conduct, 26, 79–80, 101, 103, 107–8, 119, 190–3, 221, 232 Salamone, Francesco, 28–9 salaries, 36–7, 91–2, 101, 214, 219 salt, 5, 86–7, 114–15, 120–1, 127–9, 147, 170–1, 193–4, 286, 299n98, 302n164 Saltarello, Hercole, 228–9 San Donnino, Counts, 79, l61–2, 165–6, 172, 177, 189, 202, 205, 216–18, 226–8, 232, 301n134 San Faustino, 34 San Martino, 32–4, 36 San Pellegrino, 111, 126, 138, 172, 175 San Romano, 79, 88–9, 191–3 Sangirardi, Giuseppe, 13 Sant’Agata in Saterno, Ariosto’s benefice near Lugo, 38 Santa Agata, 34 Santi, Sigismondo de’, 33 Santoro, Mario, xi, xiii, 13, 299

326

Index

Santuccio, 120, 205 Sarzana, 147, 192 Sassuolo, 31–2 Scythia, 281, 306n8 secretaries, 8, 33, 36, 41, 55, 57, 72, 76, 78, 105, 177, 210, 241, 249, 251, 254, 262, 265, 271, 292n20, 295n45, 295n47, 295n50, 296n57, 297nn69–70, 297n75, 300n110, 301n137, 301n148 Serapion, 281, 307n12 Serchio River, 56 Sesto di Moriano, 87 Sforza, Giovanni, 30, 292n9 Shakespeare, William, 3 shame (and honour), 63, 183–4, 188–90, 229; shame, 142, 265 sheep, 142 shipping, shipments, 6, 42, 121, 127, 170–1, 182, 193–5, 198, 227, 235–6, 249, 251–2, 299n98, 302n164 Sicily, 282 Siena, 66, 74, 141 Sillano, 80, 90, 99–100, 131, 167, 175, 193, 230 Sillicagnana, 99, 209, 216 Sillico, 61, 65, 70, 80, 83, 85, 99, 105, 110, 124, 131, 135, 144, 149, 154, 160, 162, 175, 185, 190, 195–6, 214, 299n107, 300n11 socks, 64 Sommacolonia, 111–12, 123, 129, 139, 144, 149, 155–8, 162, 172, 204, 212 Soraggio de li Bosi, 210, 212, 218–19, 222 spies, 31, 117, 172–3, 201, 234 Spinetta, Monti del Marchese, 217, 222

Stella, Angelo, xi–xii, 58, 289n6, 291n17, 293n15, 293n24, 297nn74–5, 299n93, 299n101, 302n162, 303n174, 304n181, 304n187, 304n196 Stephano di Barzante, 157 Stoics, 281 Streglio dal Sillico, 131 Strozzi, Carlo, 255–6, 262 Strozzi, Elena, unnamed daughter of Guido Strozzi betrothed to Giovan Francesco Strozzi, 245, 248, 305n206, 305n211 Strozzi, Ercole, 245 Strozzi, Giovan Francesco (excluding letters to him), 262–3, 304n189, 305n206, 305n211 Strozzi, Guido, 245–6, 248, 250–1, 253, 255, 257–68, 304n183, 304n195, 304n197, 305n206, 305n210 Strozzi, Leona, 250, 270, 304n195 Strozzi, Lorenzo, Count, 245, 248 Strozzi, Lucia, 249, 262–3, 304n190 Strozzi, Lucretia, 248, 263, 304n189 Strozzi, Simona degli Uberti, 251–2, 304n197 Strozzi, Tito di Lionardo, 245 Strozzi, Tito Vespasiano, 245 Strozzi family, 241, 246 Stuart, John, Duke of Albany, 230–1, 233 Studenti, I, 254, 269–70, 304n198 Svevo, Italo, 9 Syria, 281, 283, 306n8 Tasso, Torquato, 7, 294n31 Tassone, Nicolò, da Este, 247

327

Index

taxes, 27, 29, 73, 83, 86, 88, 92, 112, 115, 121, 147, 151–2, 194, 196–7, 211, 214–15, 264, 296n65, 299n98, 302n164 Temporia, 111, 149, 300n123 Terre Nuove, 57, 149, 154, 215 Terzo, 75 Thomeo di Andrea da Bargecchia, 140 Tito, Ser, notary, 90, 152 Toano, 206 Todeschino, Captain, 201–2, 216, 221 Togno di Nanni, 157 Tomi, Pier Antonio, 253 Trassilico, 57, 62–4, 86, 93, 100, 118, 186, 190, 193, 220, 300n133, 302n155 Trotti family, 259, 264 trout, 103 trust, 86, 99, 117, 124, 151, 158, 197, 204, 209, 231, 239, 245, 298n81, 299 Ugliancaldo, 166 Ugolino, Count, in Dante’s Inferno, 17 Urbino, Duke and Duchess of, 47–8 Vagli, 133–4, 141–2, 145–8, 224

Vallico, 94–5, 97, 107, 109, 120, 122, 142–3, 148, 173–4, 193, 205–6, 213, 229, 237, 239 veils, 248, 252 Venice, 25, 43, 131, 243, 246, 249, 263, 265, 282, 290n10 Venturello, an unidentified bandit, 219, 221 Vergemoli, 167, 169, 238 Vergil, 14, 16–19, 292n23 Verrucole, 162, 188–9, 190, 211, 213, 217, 219–20 Viadana, 45–6 Villa, 81, 91, 119, 148 Virgilio da Castagneto, 79, 99, 144, 298n79 weapons, 29, 75, 80, 102, 116, 156, 175, 239, 278 weather, 31, 100, 133–4, 146, 270, 278, 304n202 Wickham, C.J., xii, 296n58, 300n123 Wiggins, Peter DeSa, xii, 294n35 wine, 27, 34, 36, 45, 91–2, 117, 286–7 Zago, Santo, 253 Zanotto, Bertolino, 123–4 Ziliolo, Giovanni, 77, 144, 149–50, 154 Ziponaro, Iacomo, 270, 305n216

328