ABSTRACT
Ariosto had ordinary emotional experiences in life, and this has been shown to be true, not so much through the biographies of his contemporaries and documents which have later come to light, as through his own words, because he took great pleasure, if not exactly in confessing himself, at any rate in giving vent to his feelings. Ariosto is writing his autobiography in fragments, or rather as a series of confidential letters to his friends, such as he did not write in prose, at least none are to be found among those of his that remain. No doubt Ariosto’s comedies stand for an important date in the history of the Italian theatre and of the Latin imitation which prevailed there, that is to say, the history of culture, but not in that of poetry. There they are mute.
