[264] It is significant that Byron was able to make his translation of the first canto of the _Morgante_ so faithful to the original. On September 28, 1820, he wrote Murray:--“The Pulci I am proud of; it is superb; you have no such translation. It is the best thing I ever did in my life” (_Letters_, i., 83). It is obvious that there were features in Pulci’s style which appealed to Byron. [265] Berni was a priest, who became, with Molza, La Casa, Firenzuola, and Bini, a member of the famous Accademia della Vignajuoli in Rome, in which circle he was accustomed to recite his humorous poetry. He died under suspicious circumstances, perhaps poisoned by one of the Medicean princesses. He was the bitter enemy of Pietro Aretino, the most scurrilous satirist of the age. [266] See, _Don Juan_, XII., 1–22, with its discussion of avarice. [267] See, for example, the _Innamorato_, II., 70: “Ma s’io dicesse ogni cosa al presente Da dire un’ altra volta non aria; Pero tornate, e s’attenti starete, Sempre piu belle cose sentirete.” [268] _Don Juan_, VII., 85. [269] Many characteristics of the _Innamorato_, however, are like those of the work of Pulci and Casti. There are the same equivocal allusions and obscenities, the same pervasive skepticism and pessimism, and the same colloquial style that are to be met with in the _Morgante_ and the _Novelle_. Berni was perhaps greater as a craftsman and artist, but otherwise had the virtues and the faults of the other burlesque poets. [270] _Letters_, iii., 444–445. [271] Buratti’s career is treated at length in Vittorio Malamani’s monograph, _Il Principe dei satirici Veneziani_ (1887). An edition of his poetry, in two volumes, was printed in 1864. [272] Buratti’s after-life brought him once into relation with Byron. On the birth of a son to Hoppner, the British Consul at Venice, Byron presented the father with a short madrigal:-- “His father’s sense, his mother’s grace, In him, I hope, will always fit so; With--still to keep him in good case-- The health and appetite of Rizzo.” The Count Rizzo Pattarol, named in the last line, had the verses translated into several languages, in the Italian version changing the word “appetite” to “buonomore.” This piece of vanity so excited the mirth of Buratti that he commemorated the affair in an epigram. Byron, however, seems to have paid no attention to the incident.