Of more importance than the comedies, and second only in interest to the ‘Orlando’ are the ‘Satires’ seven in number, the first written in 1517 and the last in 1531, thus representing the maturer life of the poet.  Nearly everything we know of Ariosto’s character is taken from this source.  He reveals himself in them as a man who excites neither our highest admiration nor our contempt.  He was not born to be a statesman, nor a courtier, nor a man of affairs; and his life as ambassador of Cardinal Ippolito, and as captain of Garafagno, was not at all to his liking.  His one longing through all the busy years of his life was for a quiet home, where he could live in liberty and enjoy the comforts of cultured leisure.  A love of independence was a marked trait of his character, and it must often have galled him to play the part he did at the court of Ferrara.  As a satirist he was no Juvenal or Persius.  He was not stirred to profound indignation by the evils about him, of which there were enough in that brilliant but corrupt age.  He discussed in easy, familiar style, the foibles of his fellow-men, and especially the events of his own life and the traits of his own character.

The same views of life, the same tolerant temper, which are seen in the ‘Satires,’ form an important part of the ‘Orlando Furioso,’ where they take the form of little dissertations, introduced at the beginning of a canto, or scattered through the body of the poem.  These reflections are full of practical sense and wisdom, and remind us of the familiar conversation with the reader which forms so great a charm in Thackeray’s novels.

In the Italian Renaissance there is a curious mingling of classical and romantic influences, and the generation which gave itself up passionately to the study of Greek and Latin still read with delight the stories of the Paladins of Charlemagne and the Knights of the Round Table.  What Sir Thomas Malory had done in English prose, Boiardo did in Latin poetry.  When Ariosto entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito, every one was reading the ‘Orlando Innamorato,’ and the young poet soon fell under the charm of these stories; so that when the inward impulse which all great poets feel toward the work of creation came to him, he took the material already at hand and continued the story of ‘Orlando.’  With a certain skill and inventiveness, Boiardo had mingled together the epic cycles of Arthur and Charlemagne.  He had shown the Saracen host under King Agramante driving the army of Charlemagne before them, until the Christians had finally been shut up within the walls of Paris.  It was at this critical moment in his poem that Boiardo died.  Ariosto took up the story where he had left it, and carried it on until the final defeat of Agramante, and his death at the hands of Orlando in the desert island.

[Illustration:  LODOVICO ARIOSTO.]