[173] Amore had already spoken the prologue to Lodovico Dolce’s Dido; and a mythological play by Sannazzaro, of which the opening alone is extant, introduces Venus in pursuit of her son, and warning the ladies of the audience against his wiles (Creizenach, ii. p. 209).  The prologue to the Pastor fido is put into the mouth of the river-god Alfeo, that of Bonarelli’s Filli di Sciro, which begins with another Ovidian reminiscence (Amores, I. xiii. 40), and was written by Marino, is spoken by a personification of night, that of Ongaro’s Alceo by Venus, of Castelletti’s Amarilli by ‘Apollo in habito pastorale,’ of Cristoforo Lauro’s Frutti d’amore by Janus in similar garb, of Cesana’s Prova amoroso, by Hercules.  The list might be extended indefinitely.  Contarini, at the beginning of the next century, followed precedent less closely; his Finta Fiammetta has a dramatic prologue introducing Venus, Cupid, Anteros (the avenger of slighted love), and a chorus of amoretti; that of his Fida ninfa is spoken by the shade of Petrarch.

[174] Most of the identifications made by Menagio in his edition, Paris, 1650, have generally been accepted since, except by Fontanini, who would identify Pigna with Mopso.  There seems, however, to be little doubt possible on the point, though it is not to Tasso’s credit.  For an audience conversant with the inner life of the court, the references to Elpino contained whole volumes of contemporary scandal.  In Licori we may see Lucrezia Bendidio.  This lady, the wife of Count Paolo Machiavelli, and sister-in-law of Guarini, is said to have been the mistress of Cardinal Luigi d’ Este; but Pigna, too, courted her, and brooked no rivalry on the part of fledgling poets.  Tasso appears to have paid her imprudent attention in the early days of his residence at Ferrara, and thus incurred the secretary’s wrath.  The princess Leonora remonstrated with her poet on his folly, and Tasso, by way of palinode, wrote a fulsome commentary on three of Pigna’s wooden canzoni, ranking them with Petrarch’s.  Tasso is appareutly allnding to this incident when he puts into Elpino’s mouth the words: 

  Quivi con Tirsi ragionando andava
  Pur di colei che nell’ istessa rete
  Lui prima e me dappoi ravvolse e strinse;
  E preponendo alla sua fuga, al suo
  Libero stato il mio dolce servigio. (V. i. 61.)

The origin of the name ‘Licori’ may possibly, as Carducci points out (p. 94), be sought in an epigram, Ad Licorim, found among Pigna’s Latin Carmina (1553).  The whole incident throws a curious light on the pettiness of the Ferrarese Court, a characteristic in which it was, however, not peculiar. (See Rossi, pp. 34, &c.) It is perhaps worth while mentioning that by the antro dell’ Aurora was no doubt intended the room in the castle, said to have formed part of the private apartments of Leonora, still known as the sala dell’ Aurora, from a wretched fresco on the ceiling by the local artist Dosso Dossi.