conception of the epic, and there is in Scaliger little or no trace of the Aristotelian doctrine. He also follows Horace closely in forbidding the narrative poet to begin his poem from the very beginning of his story (_ab ovo_), and in various other details. Castelvetro (1570) differs from Aristotle in regard to the unity of the epic fable, on the ground that poetry is merely imaginative history, and can therefore do anything that history can do. Poetry follows the footsteps of history, differing merely in that history narrates what has happened, while poetry narrates what has never happened but yet may possibly happen; and therefore, since history recounts the whole life of a single hero, without regard to its unity, there is no reason why poetry should not do likewise. The epic may in fact deal with many actions of one person, one action of a whole race, or many actions of many people; it need not necessarily deal with one action of one person, as Aristotle enjoins, but if it does so it is simply to show the ingenuity and excellence of the poet.[220] II. _Epic and Romance_ This discussion of epic unity leads to one of the most important critical questions of the sixteenth century,--the question of the unity of romance. Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_ and Boiardo's _Orlando Innamorato_ were written before the Aristotelian canons had become a part of the critical literature of Italy. When it became clear that these poems diverged from the fundamental requirements of the epic as expounded in the _Poetics_, Trissino set out to compose an heroic poem which would be in perfect accord with the precepts of Aristotle. His _Italia Liberata_, which was completed by 1548, was the result of twenty years of study, and it is the first modern epic in the strict Aristotelian sense. With Aristotle as his guide, and Homer as his model, he had studiously and mechanically constructed an epic of a single action; and in the dedication of his poem to the Emperor Charles V. he charges all poems which violate this primary law of the single action with being merely bastard forms. The _romanzi_, and among them the _Orlando Furioso_, in seemingly disregarding this fundamental requirement, came under Trissino's censure; and this started a controversy which was not to end until the commencement of the next century, and in a certain sense may be said to remain undecided even to this day.