Bojardo

The Orlando Furioso is a continuation of the Orlando Innamorato of Bojardo, details the chivalrous adventures of the paladins of the age of Charlemagne, and extends to forty-six cantos.

The Orlando of Pulci has a very different history from the Orlando of Bojardo and Ariosto.

But Italy was not the true soil of chivalry, and the inimitable fictions of Bojardo, Pulci, and Ariosto were composed with that lurking smile of half-supprest mirth which, far from a serious tone, could raise only a corresponding smile of incredulity in the reader.

The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci, the Orlando Innamorato of Bojardo, the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, the Gierusalemme Liberata of Tasso, are all written in this metre.

Bojardo and Ariosto paint nature vigorously, but as briefly as possible, and with no effort to appeal by their descriptions to the feelings of the reader, which they endeavor to reach solely by their narrative and characters.