The marriage of the poet Ariosto with the beautiful Alessandra Strozzi, widow of Tito Strozzi, a noble Florentine who was famed in his day for his Latin poetry, was not concluded with any such display and magnificence, the author of the _Orlando Furioso_ being in no position which made it necessary for him to entertain the whole population, and having ideas all his own regarding the advantage of publicity in such matters. Long before Ariosto's marriage, however, in the days of his youth and before he had ever set eyes upon the Titian-haired Alessandra, he fell captive to the charms of Ginevra Lapi, a young girl of Florentine family, who lived at or near Mantua. He met her first at a _festa di ballo_, we are told, and there he was much impressed with her grace and beauty, for she seemed like a young goddess among her less favored companions. Then began that attachment which lasted for long years and which seems to have inspired much of his earlier lyric poetry. Four years after their first meeting he writes that she was "dearer to him than his own soul and fairer than ever in his eyes," and she seems to have made a very strong impression upon his mind, as he mentions her long afterward with most genuine tenderness. What more than this may be said of Ginevra Lapi has not yet come to light, and it is due to the poet alone that her name has been handed down to posterity. If Ariosto had been an expansive and communicative man, we might know far more than we do of Ginevra and of the other friends of his youth, for he was a person of most impressionable nature, who was very susceptible to the allurements of beautiful women, and there is no doubt of the fact that he had a certain compelling charm which made him almost irresistible with the ladies of his _entourage_. However, the history of his affairs of the heart has baffled all investigators as yet, because the poet, from the very earliest days of his youth, made it a rule never to boast of his conquests or to speak of his friends in any public way. As a symbol of this gallant rule of conduct, there is still preserved at Ferrara one of Ariosto's inkstands, which is ornamented with a little bronze Cupid, finger upon lip in token of silence.