At the same time, several eminent poets devoted their attention to that style of composition which was destined to form the glory of Ariosto. The trouvères chose Charlemagne and his paladins as the heroes of their poems and romances, and these, composed for the most part in French in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were early circulated in Italy. Their origin accorded with the vivacity of the prevailing religious sentiment, the violence of the passions and the taste for adventures which distinguished the first crusades; while from the general ignorance of the times, their supernatural agency was readily admitted. But at the close of the fifteenth century, when the poets possessed themselves of these old romances, in order to give a variety to the adventures of their heroes, the belief in the marvelous was much diminished, and they could not be recounted without a mixture of mockery. The spirit of the age did not admit in the Italian language a subject entirely serious. He who made pretensions to fame was compelled to write in Latin, and the choice of the vulgar tongue was the indication of a humorous subject. The language had developed since the time of Boccaccio a character of _naïveté_ mingled with satire, which still remains, and which is particularly remarkable in Ariosto. The "Morgante Maggiore" of Pulci (1431-1470) is the first of these romantic poems. It is alternately burlesque and serious, and it abounds with passages of great pathos and beauty. The "Orlando Innamorato" of Boiardo (1430-1494) is a poem somewhat similar to that of Pulci. It was, however, remodeled by Berni, sixty years after the death of the author, and from the variety and novelty of the adventures, the richness of its descriptions, the interest excited by its hero, and the honor rendered to the female sex, it excels the Morgante.