It is possible that Byron began his translation of the First Canto of Pulci's _Morgante Maggiore_ (so called to distinguish the entire poem of twenty-eight cantos from the lesser _Morgante_ [or, to coin a title, "_Morganid_"] which was published separately) in the late autumn of 1819, before he had left Venice (see his letter to Bankes, February 19, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 403). It is certain that it was finished at Ravenna during the first week of his "domestication" in the Palazzo Guiccioli (Letters to Murray, February 7, February 21, 1820). He took a deal of pains with his self-imposed task, "servilely translating stanza from stanza, and line from line, two octaves every night;" and when the first canto was finished he was naturally and reasonably proud of his achievement. More than two years had elapsed since Frere's _Whistlecraft_ had begotten _Beppo_, and in the interval he had written four cantos of _Don Juan_, outstripping his "immediate model," and equalling if not surpassing his model's parents and precursors, the masters of "narrative romantic poetry among the Italians." In attempting this translation--something, as he once said of his Armenian studies, "craggy for his mind to break upon" (Letter to Moore, December 5, 1816, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 10)--Byron believed that he was working upon virgin soil. He had read, as he admits in his "Advertisement," John Herman Merivale's poem, _Orlando in Roncesvalles_, which is founded upon the _Morgante Maggiore_; but he does not seem to have been aware that many years before (1806, 1807) the same writer (one of the "associate bards") had published in the _Monthly Magazine_ (May, July, 1806, etc., _vide ante_ Introduction to _Beppo_, p. 156) a series of translations of selected passages of the poem. There is no resemblance whatever between Byron's laboured and faithful rendering of the text, and Merivale's far more readable paraphrase, and it is evident that if these selections ever passed before his eyes, they had left no impression on his memory. He was drawn to the task partly on account of its difficulty, but chiefly because in Pulci he recognized a kindred spirit who suggested and compelled a fresh and final dedication of his genius to the humorous epopee. The translation was an act of devotion, the offering of a disciple to a master. "The apparent contradictions of the _Morgante Maggiore_ ... the brusque transition from piety to ribaldry, from pathos to satire," the paradoxical union of persiflage with gravity, a confession of faith alternating with a profession of mockery and profanity, have puzzled and confounded more than one student and interpreter. An intimate knowledge of the history, the literature, the art, the manners and passions of the times has enabled one of his latest critics and translators, John Addington Symonds, to come as near as may be to explaining the contradictions; but the essential quality of Pulci's humour eludes analysis.