Ludovico Ariosto
Ludovico Ariosto ( Ariosto German; * September 8, 1474 in Reggio Emilia, † July 6, 1533, Ferrara ) was an Italian humanist, military, courtier and author. His main work, the epic poem Orlando Furioso ( " Orlando Furioso " ), is considered one of the most important texts of Italian literature, and was received throughout Europe.
Life and work
Ariosto ( Ariosto or, as he is known in German-speaking countries often ) was the eldest of ten children of the wealthy nobles few Niccolò Ariosto, in the service of Duke Ercole I d' Este ( 1431-1505 ), the ruler of Modena and Ferrara, the garrison of Reggio Emilia in command. After he had from 1484 attended the Latin school in Ferrara, Ariosto began in 1489 on his father's wish to study law at the university there. However, he did not complete it, but devoted himself to humanistic studies. Here he made friends with the older Pietro Bembo, who later became major author, linguist, and finally a cardinal. With him he shared the interest in the younger Italian vernacular literature, especially the poetry of Petrarch and Boccaccio's stories, as well as the writings of the Florentine Neuplatonisten. Thanks to his father's position, he was admitted to the court in Ferrara, the Duke Ercole had made and expanded after 1471 the capital of his lying between the Duchy of Milan, the republics of Venice and Florence, and the Papal States dominion. During this time as a student and as an onlooker at the court Ariosto wrote several, unoriginal, seals in Latin.
When in 1500 his father died suddenly, he had to help feed the family. He entered the military footsteps of his father and took over the command of a border fortress near Canossa. In 1503 he was able to return to Ferrara and was taken into the service of Cardinal Ippolito d' Este, son of Duke Ercole. Hoping to get over him an ecclesiastical benefice, which made him financially independent, he allowed himself to give the Low ordinations and got in fact in 1506 a benefice in a rich community assigned, where, as usual in such cases, only sporadically needed to be present.
In the service of the cardinal, which he felt little appreciated, exploited and poorly paid, he was obviously very busy. Among other things, he traveled several times on his behalf to Rome. But he still found time to be literary works, beginning about 1505 only in Italian. So he wrote a series of occasional poems and sonnets and canzoni in the style of Petrarchism. Furthermore, he wrote, in prose, the comedies La Cassaria ( 1508 German about the thing with the chest [ Cassa ] ) and I Suppositi ( 1509, dt the foisted ), in which he broke away from the usual models Plautus and Terence and contemporary acting subjects treated. Above all, he worked on the Orlando, an epic poem in elfsilbigen punching, which he had begun in 1505 as a continuation of Matteo Boiardos unfinished epic poem Orlando innamorato ( " the love Roland" ) and he in 1516 with a first version of 40 songs a dedication to Ippolito had printed.
His hopes, under the 1513 elected Pope Leo X, who knew him and appreciated to get a job in Rome, were not fulfilled.
As Ippolito 1517 took over a diocese in Hungary, Ariosto did not go. Rather, he could switch to the services of his brother, the Duke (since 1505) Alfonso I d' Este. For him, he was several times in diplomatic missions go.
At the same time he was, as always, a writer, for example, connect a series of verse satires ( 1517-25 ), the biographical, political and general human aspects. Here he reflects on the first the constraints of Höflingsexistenz and explains why he is not Ippolito followed by Hungary. In a second he argues against the papal court, who had frequently let him down.
In 1520 he wrote another comedy with Il Negromante ( " the Necromancer ", perf. 1528). 1521, he gave an increased five songs edition of Orlando in pressure, which was reprinted several times in the following years.
In a third satire, he praises wistfully the simple life of a scholar away from the pressures of daily business - clearly a reflection of his strenuous activity in the troubled border province of Garfagnana, where he officiated 1522-25, apparently sent quite as governor. His experiences there he evokes in a fourth satire.
The fifth is concerned, not without the typical for the cleric misogyny, with the choice of the appropriate woman. The topic was current for Ariosto, because he thought (see below) about getting married. The sixth, which he dedicated to his friend Pietro Bembo, deals with the subject of education, because he was already a father of two from previous relationships.
1525, shortly after he had been still working as director of the Ferrarese court theater, Ariosto himself pulled into a existence back as a private citizen. He declined the offer (why, he explains in a seventh satire) to be the Duke 's ambassador to Rome, and settled in the small town Mirasole. Here he married, and indeed secretly to his benefice not to give up, with Alessandra Benucci, the Florentine humanist and author Tito Strozzi (1425-1515), chatted with the ratio has long been a widow.
In the following years he wrote the comedy La Lena ("[ the matchmaker ] Lena", 1528) and revised especially once the Orlando. He adjusted the text in terms of firming up Italian literature and written language, and it changed the direction by trying to address rather than the original, especially courtly targeted audience rather the anonymous reading public, which had since evolved.
The 1532 now has 46 songs newly published epic about the struggles of Roland and the paladins of Charlemagne, with the Gentiles, for the love of Roland to the flighty Angelica and of the love of Ruggero and Bradamante the alleged founders of the house of Este, was very successful and nearly two hundred times was reprinted only in the 16th century. Even Voltaire and Goethe appreciated the work.
1532 accompanied his Ariosto Herzog, whom he had repeatedly served as a consultant to negotiate with Emperor Charles V to Mantua. After returning home he fell seriously ill and was not recovered.
Works
- Great: Orlando furioso, 1516-32. First dt (partial) translation: The History of Orlando Furioso by Diederich of the Werder, 1632-36; Prose translation of Wilhelm Heinse: Roland the furious, 1782-83; first complete verse translation of Johann Diederich Gries: Orlando Furioso, 1808, rev. 1827-28; other translations of Karl Streckfuß, 1839; Hermann Kurtz, 1840; Otto Gildemeister, 1882, and Alfons Kissner, 1908, rev. In 1922.
- Comedies: La Cassaria, 1508 (Eng. The Box Comedy, trans. Alfonso v. Kissner, 1909)
- I Suppositi, 1509 (Eng. The foisted, ditto)
- Il Negromante, 1520 (Eng. The Necromancer, ditto)
- La Lena, 1528 (Eng. Lena, the matchmaker, ditto)
Statues and monuments
- Statue of the poet in Reggio Emilia
- Marmorhermen of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso and Ariosto in the poet grove off the west side of the castle Charlottenhof called Siam, in the park of Sanssouci / Potsdam by Gustav Blaeser