he Greek of the day (1530). This was the masked comedy to
which the Italians so tenaciously clung, and in which, as all their own
and imitable by no other nation, they took so great a pride that even
Goldoni was unable to overthrow it. Improvisation and burlesque, alike
abominable to comedy proper, were inseparable from the species.

Early Italian regular comedy.

Meanwhile, the Latin imitations of Roman, varied by occasional
translations of Greek, comedies early led to the production of Italian
translations, several of which were performed at Ferrara in the last
quarter of the 15th century, whence they spread to Milan, Pavia and
other towns of the north. Contemporaneously, imitations of Latin comedy
made their appearance, for the most part in rhymed verse; most of them
applying classical treatment to subjects derived from Boccaccio's and
other _novelle_, some still mere adaptations of ancient models. In these
circumstances it is all but idle to assign the honour of having been
"the first Italian comedy"--and thus the first comedy in modern dramatic
literature--to any particular play. Boiardo's _Timone_ (before 1494),
for which this distinction was frequently claimed, is to a large extent
founded on a dialogue of Lucian's; and, since some of its personages are
abstractions, and Olympus is domesticated on an upper stage, it cannot
be regarded as more than a transition from the moralities. A. Ricci's _I
Tre Tiranni_ (before 1530) seems still to belong to the same
transitional species. Among the earlier imitators of Latin comedy in the
vernacular may be noted G. Visconti, one of the poets patronized by
Ludovico il Moro at Milan;[27] the Florentines G. B. Araldo, J. Nardi,
the historian,[28] and D. Gianotti.[29] The step--very important had it
been adopted consistently or with a view to consistency--of substituting
prose for verse as the diction of comedy, is sometimes attributed to
Ariosto; but, though his first two comedies were originally written in
prose, the experiment was not new, nor did he persist in its adoption.
Caretto's _I Sei Contenti_ dates from the end of the 15th century, and
Publio Filippo's _Formicone_, taken from Apuleius, followed quite early
in the 16th. Machiavelli, as will be seen, wrote comedies both in prose
and in verse.

But, whoever wrote the first Italian comedy, Ludovico Ariosto was the
first master of the species. All but the first two of his comedies,
belonging as they do to the field o