Ludovico Ariosto, born September 8, 1474, Reggio Emilia, duchy of Modena —died July 6, 1533, Ferrara, Italian poet remembered for his epic poem Orlando furioso (1516), which is generally regarded as the finest expression of the literary tendencies and spiritual attitudes of the Italian Renaissance.

He showed an inclination toward poetry from an early age, but his father intended him for a legal career, and so he studied law, unwillingly, at Ferrara from 1489 to 1494. Afterward he devoted himself to literary studies until 1499. Count Niccolò died in 1500, and Ludovico, as the eldest son, had to give up his dream of a peaceful life devoted to humanistic studies in order to provide for his four brothers and five sisters. In 1502 he became commander of the citadel of Canossa and in 1503 entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, son of Duke Ercole I.


from 1517 to 1525, he composed his seven satires , modeled after the Sermones of Horace. The first is a noble assertion of the dignity and independence of the writer; the second criticizes ecclesiastical corruption; the third moralizes on the need to refrain from
Ariosto’s five comedies, Cassaria (1508), I suppositi (1509), Il negromante (1520), La lena (1529), and I studenti (completed by his brother Gabriele and published posthumously as La scolastica), are based on the Latin classics but were inspired by contemporary life. Though minor works in themselves, they were among the first of those imitations of Latin comedy in the vernacular that would long characterize European comedy.

By 1525 Ariosto had managed to save enough money to return to Ferrara, where he bought a little house with a garden. He spent the last years of his life with his wife, cultivating his garden and revising the Orlando furioso. The third edition of his masterpiece (Ferrara, 1532) contained 46 cantos (a giunta, or appendix, known as the Cinque canti, or “Five Cantos,” was published posthumously in 1545). This final version at last achieved perfection and was published a few months before Ariosto’s death.