BOIARDO, Count Matteo Maria, of a noble and illustrious house established at Ferrara, but originally from Reggio, was born at Scandiano, one of the seignorial estates of his family, near Reggio di Modena, about the year 1434 according to Tiraboschi, or 1420 according to Mazzuchelli. At an early age he entered the university of Ferrara, where he applied to his studies as regularly as if he had not been a person of quality, nor belonged to the privileged class. He acquired the Greek and Latin, and even the oriental languages, and was in due time admitted doctor in philosophy and in law. At the court of Ferrara, where he enjoyed the favour of duke Borso d’Este and his successor Hercules, he was invested with several honourable employments, and in particular named governor of Reggio, an appointment which he held in the year 1478. Three years afterwards he was elected captain of Modena, and re-appointed governor of the town and citadel of Reggio, where he died in the year 1494, though in what month is uncertain. Almost all his works, and especially his great poem of the Orlando Inamorato, were composed for the amusement of duke Hercules and his court, though not written within its precincts. His practice, it is said, was to retire to Scandiano or some other of his estates, and there to devote himself to composition; and Castelvctro, Vallisnieri, Mazzuchelli, and Tiraboschi, all unite in stating, that he took care to insert in the descriptions of his poem those of the agreeable environs of his chateau, and that the greater part of the names of his heroes, as Man-dricar, Gradasse, Sacripant, Agramant, and others, were merely the names of some of his peasants, which, from their uncouthness, appeared to him proper to be given to Sar-razen warriors. But be this as it may, the Orlando Inamorato deserves to be considered as one of the most important poems in Italian literature, since it forms the first example of the romantic epic worthy to serve as a model, and, as such, undoubtedly produced the Orlando Furioso. Gravina and Mazzuchelli have said, and succeeding writers have repeated on their authority, that Boiardo proposed to himself as his model the Iliad of Homer; that Paris is besieged like the city of Troy, that Angelica holds the place of Helen, and that, in short, the one poem is a sort of reflex image of the other. In point of fact, however, the subject-matter of the poem is derived from the Fabulous C∕ιronicle of Turpin; and, with the exception of the names of Charlemagne, Roland, Olivier, and some other principal warriors, who necessarily figure as important characters in the scene, there is not the least resemblance or analogy between the fable of the one and that of the other. This poem, which Boiardo did not live to finish, was printed at Scandiano the year after his death, under the superintendence of his son Count Camille. The title of the book is without date; but a Latin letter from Antonio Caraffa di Reggio, prefixed to the poem, is dated the kalends of June 1495. A second edition, also without date, but which must have been printed before the year 1500, appeared at Venice; and the poem was there twice reprinted during the first twenty years of the sixteenth century. These editions are the more curious and valuable, that they contain nothing but the text of the author, which is comprised in three books, divided into cantos, the third book being incomplete. But Niccolo degli Agostini, a mediocre poet, had the courage to continue the work commenced by Boiardo, adding to it three books, which were printed at Venice in 1526, 1531, in 4to; and since this time no edition of the Orlando has been printed without the continuation of Agostini, wretched as it unquestionably is. Nor is this all. Successive rifacciamenti were executed by Domenichi and Berni, who took prodigious liberties, especially with [7:4:738] the style, which they chose to consider as feeble, and ill suited to the high qualities of the poem in other respects; and the consequence has been, that the original composition has been nearly overlaid by these innovations, and that the romantic epic invented by Boiardo is now almost universally read as remodelled by Berni. The other works of Boiardo are, 1. Il Timone, a comedy, Scandiano, 1500, 4to; 2. Sonnetti e Canzoni, Reggio, 1499, 4to; 3. Carmen Bucolicon, Rcggio, 1500, 4to; 4. Cinque Capitoli in terza rima, Venice, 1523 or 1533; 5. Apulejo dell Asino d oro, Venice, 1516, 1518; 6. Asino Toro de Luciano, tradotto in volgare, Venice, 1523, 8vo; 7. Erodoto Alicarnasseo istorieo, tradottodi Greco in Lingua Italiana, Venice, 1533 and 1538, 8vo; 8. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. {Biographie Universelle; Tiraboschi, Storia della Letterat. Ital. lib. iii. c. 3. sect. 26, 33; Crescimbeni, tom. i. and iii.) (a.)