ABSTRACT
Francesco Berni was born at Lamporecchio, in the Val di Nievole, towards the end of the fifteenth century. Berni was at Rome when it was plundered by the Colonna party in 1526, and was robbed of every thing: at the same time he was struck with horror at the cruelties committed by the invaders. Berni possessed, to an extraordinary degree, a liveliness of imagination, and a facetiousness, which caused him to invent a new style of poetry, light, witty, but highly fanciful, which became the delight of his contemporaries. Berni evidently appreciated Ariosto’s merits, and he saw in Bojardo’s a groundwork that emulated them. Berni supposes himself to be one of the company, together with a French cook, Maître Pierre Buffet, who had been in the service of Giberti; and he describes his beau-ideal of the indolent life he loved.
