d
ages with stories derived from every attainable source. But the first
great epic poet in Italy was Dante (1265-1321), whose Divina Commedia,
begun in 1300, is treated separately in this volume. Although
Petrarch was prouder of his Latin than of his Italian verses, he too
greatly perfected Italian poetry, thus enabling his personal friend
Boccaccio to handle the language with lasting success in the tales
which compose his Decameron. These are the Italian equivalents of the
Canterbury Tales, and in several cases both writers have used the same
themes.

By the fifteenth century, and almost simultaneously with the
introduction of printing, came the Renaissance, when a number of old
epics were reworked. Roland--or, as he is known in Italy, Orlando--is
the stock-hero of this new school of poets, several of whom undertook
to relate his love adventures. Hence we have "Orlando Innamorato," by
Boiardo and Berni, as well as "Morgante Maggiore" by Pulci, where
Roland also figures. In style and tone these works are charming, but
the length of the poems and the involved adventures of their numerous
characters prove very wearisome to modern readers. Next to Dante, as a
poet, the Italians rank Ariosto, whose "Orlando Furioso," or Roland
Insane, is a continuation of Boiardo's "Orlando Innamorato." Drawing
much of his material from the French romances of the Middle Ages,
Ariosto breathes new life into the old subject and graces his tale
with a most charming style. His subject was parodied by Folengo in his
"Orlandino" when Roland began to pall upon the Italian public.

The next epic of note in Italian literature is Torquato Tasso's
"Gerusalemme Liberata," composed in the second half of the sixteenth
century, and still immensely popular owing to its exquisite style.
Besides this poem, of which Godfrey of Bouillon is the hero and which
is _par excellence_ the epic of the crusades, Tasso composed epics on
"Rinaldo," on "Gerusalemme Conquistata," and "Sette Giornate del Mundo
Creato."

Some of Ariosto's contemporaries also attempted the epic style,
including Trissino, who in his "Italia Liberata" relates the victories
of Belisarius over the Goths in blank verse. His fame, however, rests
on "Sofonisba," the first Italian tragedy, in fact "the first regular
tragedy in all modern literature."

Although no epics of great note were written thereafter, Alamanni
composed "Girone il Cortese" and the "Avarchide," which are
intolerably long an