Editing Matteo Maria Boiardo

{{Short description|Italian Renaissance poet (1440–1494)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name        = Matteo Maria Boiardo
| image       = Matteo Maria Boiardo.gif
| caption     = Matteo Maria Boiardo
| pseudonym    =
| birth_name   =
| birth_date   = 1440
| birth_place  = [[Scandiano]], [[Duchy of Modena and Reggio]]
| death_date   = 19/20 December 1494
| death_place  = [[Reggio Emilia]], [[Duchy of Modena and Reggio]]
| occupation  = Poet
| nationality = Italian
| language    = [[Italian language|Italian]]
| period      = [[Renaissance]]
| genre       = [[Epic poetry]]
| subject     = [[Chivalry]]
| movement    = [[Renaissance literature]]
| notableworks = ''[[Orlando innamorato]]''
| awards      =
| signature   = 
| parents     = Giovanni Boiardo and Lucia Boiardo (née Strozzi)
}}

'''Matteo Maria Boiardo''' ({{IPAc-en|US|b|ɔɪ|ˈ|ɑːr|d|oʊ|,_|b|oʊ|ˈ|j|ɑːr|d|oʊ}},<ref>{{Cite Merriam-Webster|Boiardo|access-date=31 May 2019}}</ref> {{IPA|it|matˈtɛːo maˈriːa boˈjardo|lang}}; 1440{{snd}}19/20 December 1494) was an [[Italian Renaissance]] [[poet]], best known for his epic poem ''[[Orlando innamorato]]''.

==Early life==
Boiardo was born in 1440,<ref>[http://www.letteratura.it/matteomariaboiardo/index.htm Matteo Maria Boiardo] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221065110/http://www.letteratura.it/matteomariaboiardo/index.htm |date=21 February 2009 }} Letteratura.it</ref> at or near, [[Scandiano]] (today's province of [[Reggio Emilia]]); the son of Giovanni di Feltrino and Lucia Strozzi. His mother Lucia was the sister of the humanist poet [[Tito Vespasiano Strozzi]], his father Giovanni the son of Feltrino Boiardo, whom [[Niccolò III d'Este]], Marquis of Ferrara, had made Count of Scandiano, with seignorial power over [[Arceto, Italy|Arceto]], [[Casalgrande]], [[Gesso, Italy|Gesso]], and [[Castello della Torricella, Emilia-Romagna|Torricella]]. Boiardo was an ideal example of a gifted and accomplished courtier, possessing both a gallant heart and deep humanistic learning.

In 1441 the family moved to Ferrara, where Matteo Maria grew up until his father died in 1451. At an early age he entered the [[University of Ferrara]], where he acquired a good knowledge of Greek and Latin, and even of the Oriental languages. He was in due time admitted doctor in philosophy and in law.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|inline=1 |wstitle=Boiardo, Matteo Maria |volume=4 |page=138}} This further references [[Anthony Panizzi|Panizzi]]'s ''Boiardo'' (9 vols., 1830-1831).</ref>

When his grandfather Feltrino died in 1460, Matteo Maria and his cousin Giovanni inherited the fief of Scandiano with its attached lands, but the joint administration gave rise to family feuds culminating in 1474, when Matteo Maria narrowly averted poisoning at the instigation of his aunt Taddea Pio, Giovanni's mother. This caused the lands to be divided, and Boiardo became Lord of Scandiano. But already in 1461 disputes with relatives had forced him to take up residence in Ferrara.

==Career==
[[File:Title page of Herodotus' history of the Greek and Persian Wars 1502.jpg|thumb|left|Italian translation of [[Herodotus' Histories]] by Count Matteo Maria Boiardo, published in [[Venice]] in 1533.]]
Up to the year of his marriage to Taddea Gonzaga, the daughter of the Count of Novellara (1472), he had received many marks of favour from [[Borso d'Este]], Duke of Ferrara, having been sent to meet [[Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick III]] (1469), and afterwards visiting [[Pope Paul II]] (1471) in the train of Borso. In 1473 he joined the retinue which escorted [[Eleanor of Naples, Duchess of Ferrara|Eleonora of Aragon]], the daughter of [[Ferdinand I of Naples|Ferdinand I]], to meet her spouse, [[Ercole I d'Este|Ercole]], at [[Ferrara]].

In 1476 Boiardo returned to Ferrara to become Duke Ercole's companion; here he witnessed the unfolding of Niccolò d'Este's conspiracy against Ercole, his cousin, whose victory Boiardo promptly celebrated in his ''Latin'' Epigrammata. In 1478 Boiardo married Taddea dei Gonzaga of Novellara, by whom he had six children.  

In 1481 Boiardo was invested with the governorship of Reggio, an office which he filled with noted success till his death, except for a brief interval (1481–86) when he was governor of [[Modena]]. The outbreak of war between Ferrara and Venice, the vicissitudes of which are reflected in his ''Ecloghe volgari'', and his concern for his native Scandiano, forced him to relinquish the post.

In 1487 Ercole appointed Boiardo ducal emissary for [[Reggio Emilia|Reggio]], an office which he was to hold until his death, and which has left us the largest nucleus of his ''Lettere'', mostly of an administrative nature. When [[Charles VIII of France]] invaded Italy, in September 1494, Boiardo's health had deteriorated. He died in Reggio on 19 December, his death, with that of [[Poliziano]] and [[Giovanni Pico della Mirandola]] in the same year, marking the end of an era.

==Writing==
In his youth Boiardo had been a successful imitator of [[Petrarch]]'s love poems. For Ercole d'Este he produced his first humanist works in [[Latin]], the ''Carmina de laudibus Estensium'' and the ''Pastoralia'', both dating from 1463–4; he also undertook a number of free translations into the vernacular, from [[Cornelius Nepos]], [[Xenophon]], [[Apuleius]], [[Herodotus]], and the chronicler [[Riccobaldo of Ferrara]].
[[File:Boiardo - Amorum libri, a di XVIIII decembre 1499 - 2476442 ib00831000 TMD MASTER IMG Scan00009.tif|thumb|''Amorum libri'', 1499]]
While in Reggio in 1469 Boiardo met Antonia Caprara, who inspired his ''canzoniere'', his first original work in the vernacular, now regarded as one of the highest poetic achievements of the 15th century. Entitled ''Amorum libri tres'' and comprising 180 [[Sonnet|sonnets]], [[Canzone|canzoni]], and [[Madrigal|madrigals]], it recounts in Petrarchan mode the three phases of the poet's love, from initial joy to subsequent disillusionment and final mourning. Shortly afterwards Boiardo wrote the [[comedy]] ''Il Timone'' (1487?), loosely based on the dialogue of the same name by [[Lucian]]. 

Around 1476 Boiardo began his major work, ''[[Orlando Innamorato]]'', originally also called ''Inamoramento de Orlando'', a grandiose poem of [[chivalry]] and romance absorbing the poetic experience of the ''canzoniere'' and the encomiastic intent of the earlier Latin works (the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition]] provides a detailed discussion of ''Orlando'' in its several editions).{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} Within the chivalric tradition ''Orlando'' ''Innamorato'' is the first poem to effect a deliberate fusion of the [[Matter of France|Carolingian]] and [[Matter of Britain|Arthurian]] narrative cycles; hence the poem's novelty, the fact that Orlando, the hero of the ''[[Song of Roland]]'', is in love. Seen as a cosmic force as well as an essential attribute to chivalry, love is by far the main theme, alongside other major themes of arms, magic, honour, and adventure. Fabulous and anachronistic as this narrative material may seem, the poet relates it to the present by creating the illusion of a live recitation to a courtly audience, whose reactions he registers at various points. Within this frame the narration itself unfolds at a relentless pace, governed by the so-called ''entrelacement'' technique of suspending one story and shifting to another at the point of maximum expectation.

Almost all Boiardo's works, and especially the ''Orlando innamorato'', were composed for the amusement of Duke Ercole 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 historians state that he took care to insert in the descriptions of his poem those of the agreeable environs of his château, and that the greater part of the names of his heroes, as Mandricardo, 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 [[Saracen]] warriors.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}

===Tarot===
It is uncertain when Boiardo wrote a poem about a self-composed, unusual [[Tarot]] game ([[Tarocchi]]), which is of relevance to Tarot research of the 15th century and the question of when Tarot developed. 

A Tarocchi deck was produced according to the poem (probably created shortly after Boiardo's death). The only known deck has partially survived (only 44 cards out of a deck of at least 56 - or possibly 78 if it originally included the 22 Trumps).<ref>The previously unknown deck was once the property of Captain H. E. Rimington Wilson [b.1899-d.1971; 72 years old], a collector of rare card decks. It was auctioned as Lot 310 at Christie's on the 24th of November, 1971 for 350 guineas (or £367.50 in New Pence).</ref> It was composed of four unique suits, each representing a passion: Whips (''Timor'' > fear), Eyes (''Gelosia'' > jealousy), Vases (''Speranza'' > hope) and Arrows (''Amor'' > love). The suits were each composed of the 10 "pip" cards (Ace through 10) and the 4 Face Cards: ''Fante'' ("Soldier" / Knave), ''Cavallo'' ("Cavalryman" / Knight), ''Donna'' ("Lady" / Queen) and ''Re'' ("King"). Each card had three lines of verse from the poem in a rectangle at the top.

== Legacy ==
Boiardo's ''Orlando Innamorato'' enjoyed great popularity amongst his contemporaries, its unfinished state prompting a number of sequels by, amongst others, Nicolò degli Agostini, Raffaele Valcieco, and above all [[Ludovico Ariosto]] in his ''[[Orlando Furioso]]''. But [[Pietro Bembo]]'s reformation of the language in 1525, the rediscovery of [[Aristotle]]'s ''[[Poetics]]'' in the 1530s, and the incipient [[Counter-Reformation]] in the 1540s all caused it to fall from favour amongst critics and writers, including [[Torquato Tasso]], who found it lacking on linguistic, theoretical, and moral grounds. Gradually, Boiardo's original version was supplanted by [[Francesco Berni]]'s ''rifacimento'' (1542), a recasting of the poem in literary Tuscan, and by [[Lodovico Domenichi]]'s contemporary revision, the publication of which (1544), significantly, coincided with the last edition of Boiardo to appear in the Renaissance in the original text.

Following centuries of neglect, the rediscovery of Boiardo took place in [[England]] during the [[Romanticism|Romantic period]]. Starting in 1830 [[Anthony Panizzi]], the expatriate Italian professor later to become librarian of the [[British Museum]], produced a historic combined edition of Boiardo's ''Orlando'' ''Innamorato'' and Ariosto's ''Orlando'' ''Furioso''. This marked both the restoration of the ''Innamorato''<nowiki/>'s original text and the beginning of modern Boiardo criticism.

Described by the critic [[Carlo Dionisotti]] as the most misunderstood poet in Italian literature, and for a long time overshadowed by Ariosto, Boiardo has since emerged as one of the most forceful poets of the Renaissance, his work recognized as the first vernacular masterpiece by a Northern Italian author. As a result of this critical acclaim he now seems set to rival Ariosto's long-standing supremacy.

== Translations ==
The first translation of Boiardo into English was [[Robert Tofte]]'s ''Orlando Inamorato: The Three First Bookes'' (1598), in reality the first three cantos of book 1 in Domenichi's version. The Italian text was known to [[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]] and [[John Milton|Milton]], but it was not until the 19th century that other partial translations were attempted, by Richard Wharton (1804), [[William Stewart Rose]] (1823), and [[Leigh Hunt]] (1846).

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* {{DBI|url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/matteo-maria-boiardo_(Dizionario-Biografico)|first=Fiorenzo|last=Forti|title=BOIARDO, Matteo Maria|volume=11}}
* {{cite encyclopedia
|last         = 
|first        = 
|date         = 1998
|title        = Matteo Maria Boiardo
|url          = https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/italian-literature-biographies/matteo-maria-boiardo
|encyclopedia = Encyclopedia of World Biography
|volume       = 2
|location     = Detroit
|publisher    = Gale Research
|access-date  = 11 February 2025
}}
* {{cite encyclopedia
|last         = Dorigatti
|first        = Marco
|date         = 2002
|title        = Boiardo, Matteo Maria
|url          = https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198183327.001.0001/acref-9780198183327-e-439
|encyclopedia = The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature
|location     = Oxford
|publisher    = [[Oxford University Press]]
|access-date  = 14 February 2025
}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
{{commons category}}
* {{wikisource author-inline|Matteo Maria Boiardo}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=6265| name=Matteo Maria Boiardo}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Matteo Maria Boiardo}}
* [http://trionfi.com/0/h/00/ Boiardo's influence on the early Tarot game inclusive an extensive time line of Boiardo's life]
* [http://www.trionfi.com/j/boiardo/Temp$$$2519946276.html  Samples of the Boiardo deck along with historical notes]

{{Authority control}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2017}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boiardo, Matteo Maria}}
[[Category:1440 births]]
[[Category:1494 deaths]]
[[Category:Italian male poets]]
[[Category:Italian Renaissance writers]]
[[Category:People from the Province of Reggio Emilia]]
[[Category:Tarot card games]]
[[Category:15th-century Italian poets]]
[[Category:Italian-language poets]]
[[Category:Epic poets]]