Important as leading to Ariosto’s poem. Boiardo was well known to Milton, and had previously served as material for Elizabethan story writers. Byron in _Don Juan_ and _Beppo_ adopted the “Bernesque” style. Lodovico ARIOSTO 1474-1533 _Orlando Furioso_ (1516) Favourite reading of Spenser, to whom it suggests the metrical form and romantic style of _Faerie Queene_. Translated by Harington (1591) in the same metre. Torquato TASSO 1544-1595 _Gerusalemme Liberata_ (1581) Spenser’s _Faerie Queene_ is full of echoes and imitations of Tasso (the bower of Acrasia is a translation of the garden of Armida). Milton is similarly indebted, as well as to Tasso’s _Creation_ (_Il Mondo Creato_). Translated by Fairfax (1600). Giovanni Battista MARINI 1569-1625 _Adone_ (a romantic epic) Chiefly memorable for encouragement of the fantastic style known as Marinism (early seventeenth century in England). Marini was favourite reading with Crashaw and his like. Mock Heroic Alessandro Tassoni 1565-1638 _La Secchia Rapita_ (“Rape of the Bucket”). Suggested Pope’s _Rape of the Lock_. Satirical Verse (Ariosto) Luigi Alamanni 1495-1556 Utilized by Wyatt. Pietro Aretino 1492-1557 Much affected by Elizabethan pamphleteers, _e.g._, Nash (“the English Aretino”). Drama: Tragedy Giovanni Giorgio TRISSIMO 1478-1550 _Sofonisba._ Important as the first example of blank verse, which was borrowed from him by Surrey, used in the first English tragedy (_Gorboduc_, by Sackville), and thence established by Marlowe for English drama. TASSO _Il Torrismondo._ (The French and English dramatists proper began by following the Italian example of producing so-called classical plays: but English drama owes little to Italian, the case being rather the reverse. So far as Italian effect was pronounced it was in the direction of horrible detail.) Scipione MAFFEI 1675-1755 _Merope._ Vittorio ALFIERI 1749-1803 _Saul._ Drama: Comedy ARIOSTO 1474-1533 _I Suppositi_ and _La Cassaria_, etc. _I Suppositi_ (_The Supposes_) translated by Gascoigne (1566) as one of our earliest comedies. Niccolo MACHIAVELLI 1469-1527 _Mandragola_, etc. (Pietro Aretino) (The general influence in England was as slight as that of Tragedy. It should, however, be remarked that our Harlequin, Pantaloon, Columbine, and Punch, are derived from the old Italian _commedie dell’arte_, _i.e._, stock un-literary comedies: also that the “Masques” (up to Ben Jonson) were a suggestion from Italy.)