The project, however, had once more to be abandoned owing to the death of Cardinal Gianvincenzo Gonzaga at Rome.  We possess the scheme for the four intermezzi designed for this occasion, representing the Musica della Terra, del Mare, dell’ Aria, and Celeste.  They were scenic and musical only, without words.  About this time too, that is after the appearance of the first edition dated 1590, we have notes of preparations for several private performances, the ultimate fate of which is uncertain.  The first representation of which there is definite evidence, though even here details are lacking, took place at Crema in Lombardy in 1596, at the cost of Lodovico Zurla[194].  After this performances become frequent, and in 1598, after the death of Alfonso, the play was finally produced in state before Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua.  On all these occasions we may suppose that other prologues were substituted for that addressed to gran Caterina and magnanimo Carlo[195].

In the meanwhile Guarini, fearing piracy, had turned his attention to the publication of his play.  He first resolved to submit it to the criticism of Lionardo Salviati and Scipione Gonzaga, the latter of whom had been a member of the unlucky committee for the revision of the Gerusalemme.  Unfortunately little or nothing is known as to the criticisms and recommendations of these two men.  The work finally appeared, as we learn from a letter of the author, at Venice in December, 1589.  It is a handsome quarto from the press of Giovanbattista Bonfadino, and is dated the following year[196].  In 1602 a luxurious edition, said on the title-page to be the twentieth, was issued at Venice by Giovanbattista Ciotti.  This represents Guarini’s final revision of the text, and contains, besides a portrait and engravings, elaborate notes by the author, and an essay on tragi-comedy[197].

The Pastor fido was the object of a violent attack while as yet it circulated in manuscript only.  As early as 1587 a certain Giasone de Nores or Denores, a Cypriot noble who held the chair of moral philosophy at the university of Padua, published a pamphlet on the relations existing between different forms of literature and the philosophy of government, in which, while refraining from any specific allusions, he denounced tragi-comedies and pastorals as ’monstrous and disproportionate compositions ... contrary to the principles of moral and civil philosophy.’  Guarini argued that, as his play was the only one deserving to be called a tragi-comedy and was at the same time a pastoral, the reference was palpable.  He proceeded therefore to compose a counterblast which he named Il Verato (1588) after a well-known comic actor of the time, who, it may be remarked, had had the management of Argenti’s Sfortunato in 1567.  In this pamphlet Guarini traversed the professor’s propositions with a good deal of scholastic ergotism:  ’As in compounds the hot accords with the cold,