Giovan Battista Pigna
Giovan Battista Pigna (1530-1575) was an Italian humanist, poet and historian from Ferrara. A reformer of the University of Ferrara, Pigna was secretary to Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and court historian at Ferrara. Pigna's "I romanzi" (1554) argued that chivalric romances like those of Ariosto were a modern form of poetry equal to those considered by Aristotle's "Poetics". Torquato Tasso, who succeeded Pigna as court historian, attacked Pigna's defence of Ariostan poetry in his "Discorsi dell'arte poetica".