and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE MIRROR
OF
LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
| VOL. XVII, NO. 481.] | SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1831. | [PRICE 2d. |
RELICS OF ARIOSTO.
INKSTAND.
CHAIR.We need not bespeak the reader's interest in these "trivial fond"relics—these consecrated memorials—of one of the most celebrated poetsof Italy. They are preserved with reverential care at Ferrara, thepoet's favourite residence, though not his birthplace. The Ferrarese,however, claim him "exclusively as their own" Lord Byron, in theNotes1 to Childe Harold, canto 4, says, "the author of theOrlando is jealously claimed as the Homer, not of Italy, but Ferrara.The mother of Ariosto was of Reggio, and the house in which he was bornis carefully distinguished by a tablet with these words:—'Qui nacqueLudovico Ariosto il giorno 8 di Settembre dell' anno 1474.' But the[pg 194]Ferrarese make light of the accident by which their poet was bornabroad, and claim him exclusively for their own. They possess hisbones, they show his ARM-CHAIR, and his INKSTAND, and his autographs.The house where he lived, the room where he died, are designated by hisown replaced memorial, and by a recent inscription."
Ferrara, we should here mention, is a fortified town, and a day'sjourney, en voiturier, from Florence to Vienna. The Tomb, as well asthe above relics, a bronze Medallion of the great Poet, and an accountof his last illness and death—the two latter found in his tomb—are inthe public library at Ferrara. This library also contains the originalMSS. of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, and Guarini's Pastor Fido;and in the Hospital of St. Anne, at Ferrara, travellers are shown thecell where Tasso was confined.
The INKSTAND is of bronze, and its singular device is said to refer tothe Poet's amorous caution. In his Life,2 we are told that "The amoursof Ariosto are a difficult theme for both his eulogists and hisbiographers. He has alluded in his Poems to several ladies with whosecharms he was captivated, but, with the exception of Alessandra andGenevra, the names under which they are mentioned are fictitious. Hiscaution in this respect is thought to have been hinted at in the deviceplaced on his favourite inkstand, and which consisted of a littleCupid having his forefinger on his lip in token of secresy." Theevidence in proof of Alessandra's being his wife is little short ofunanswerable.