Matteo Maria Boiardo. Orlando Innamorato Composto. Venetia: li heredi di Lucantonio Giunta, 1545.
Boiardo served the dukes of Ferrara and was appointed governor of Reggio. In addition to the Orlando Boiardo translated Lucian and Apuleius into Italian.
His Orlando Innamorato combines both the love adventures of the Arthurian romance tradition and the military honor, patriotism and religion of the Carolingian cycle. Boiardo began writing the poem in 1476, but the first two parts were not published until 1483 and they were revised in 1496. Written in an erudite and dialectical language and composed in an old-fashioned style, the poem was not popular in its time, but it strongly influenced Ariosto and the further development of epic poetry in Italy, Spain and the Indies.
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