It does not appear that Berni had any intention of parodying the _Orlando Innamorato_ in his _rifacimento_; he simply wished to bring it, in his conception, nearer to the literary level of the continuation which had superseded it, and deemed that this could be best effected by an infusion of humour and satire. It would be a still greater error to assume, with some modern Italian critics, an intention on the part of Boiardo and Ariosto of parodying the old chivalric romance. They merely desired to adapt it to the spirit of their own age, as Tennyson has adapted the _Morte d’Arthur_ to ours, and their sprightliness is the correlative of his moral earnestness. Ariosto is less reverent of his original than Boiardo, but he keeps within bounds. The great success of his poem, however, was sure to evolve a _bona-fide_ parodist, as in our day Mark Twain has capered with cap and bells in the wake of Tennyson. The Italian Mark Twain was TEOFILO FOLENGO (1491-1544), known under his pseudonym of _Merlinus Cocaius_ as a distinguished cultivator of macaronic poetry, a by-path of literature which we are compelled to leave unexplored. He was a dissipated runaway monk, who repented, became serious, and resought his cell just as he seemed within an ace of turning Protestant. His _Orlandino_ is a burlesque upon the poems of chivalry, with pieces of genuine poetry interspersed, and many digressions on the corruptions of the age, especially the vices of the religious orders. It is unfinished. What was published is said to have been written in three months, a statement confirmed by the energy of the verse.