which it was necessary to confer upon somebody. The Garfagnana was a wild district overrun with poetical banditti, readers and admirers of their governor's epic. Here Ariosto gained much honour, but little emolument.
His experience of his patrons generally justified his favourite motto, Pro bono malum. Even the munificent Leo X. did nothing for him but kiss him on both cheeks, and remit half the fees upon the brief that assured his copyrights, his particular friend Cardinal Bibbiena pocketing the other. His sole real benefactor was the Marquis del Vasto, husband of the lady whom we shall find celebrated by Luigi Tansillo, who settled an annuity of a hundred ducats upon him. Even this was consideration for value to be received, the Marquis, himself a poet, being properly impressed by the Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona maicim. Ariosto acquitted himself of his obligation like a man, comparing his patron to Cæsar, Nestor, Achilles, Nireus, and Ladas. Great as was the renown which his Orlando procured for him in his lifetime, its profits were not such as to render him independent of patronage; yet, after all, he was able to boast that the modest house which he built for himself, and where he died in 1533, was paid for by his own money.[1] It is kept to this day by the municipality of Ferrara; and Ariosto's manuscripts, evincing his indefatigable care in the revision of his poem, are preserved in the public library.
The chief literary occupations of his latter years had been the composition of comedies, the superintendence of theatrical perfonnances for the entertainment of the Duke, and the incessant revision of the Orlando Furioso,
- ↑
"Parva sed apta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia; sed non
Sordida, parta meo sed tamen aere domus."
