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Pietro Bembo, the influential Venetian scholar, poet and literary
theorist, presented his theories in the codification of literary Italian
in the treatise Prose della volgar lingua (Proses of the vernacular
language, 1525). In the third book of this treatise, Bembo claims
that contemporary Italian poetic language should be based on the
literary language of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, while contemporary
Italian prose should take the language of Boccaccio’s Decameron
(1351) as an ideal model. Due to the solid intellectual authority of
its author, Prose della volgar lingua was a striking success and
made possible a deep reformation within literary Italian.
Ludovico ariosto (1474–1533) lived in the first half of the six-
teenth century, while Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) lived in the sec-
ond half. ariosto and Tasso were the two major poets to dominate
the Italian literary scene in the sixteenth century. On one hand,
ariosto’s poem, Orlando furioso (Mad Orlando, 1532), was con-
sidered the symbol of the afore-mentioned reformation, the perfect
example of the Tuscanization and archaicisation of that poetical
language which adopted Petrarch as a model. ariosto’s narrative
structure is labyrinthic; while his octave is linear and harmonic, the
style is ironic and detached in describing the adventures of his
characters. On the other hand, Tasso’s poem Gerusalemme libera-
ta (Jerusalem Delivered, 1580) tends to break the style of
Petrarchism. Gerusalemme liberata has a linear narrative structure,
but is characterized by a fractured octave, with frequent use of
enjambements that bring out the dramatic tone of the narration. The
style and the position of the narrator is never ironic; on the con-
trary, they are often emotively involved in the psychological com-
plexity of characters’ lives and actions.
In the late sixteenth century and during the seventeenth century,
philosophers, scholars and literati sustained a rather heated debate
in establishing who, between these two authors, ought to be con-
sidered superior. This kind of critical setting is obviously obsolete,
as contemporary literary critical approaches are not based on the
“rules” that a literary genre is supposed to follow a priori, but on
the cultural, historical, and sociological aspects in which a work, as
well as the author, develops.
nevertheless, this sort of posthumous literary contest between the
two great poets of the sixteenth century involved intellectuals and
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