Matteo Maria Boiardo

Matteo Maria Boiardo
Matteo Maria Boiardo
Born	1440 Scandiano, Duchy of Modena and Reggio
Died	19/20 December 1494 Reggio Emilia, Duchy of Modena and Reggio
Occupation	Poet
Language	Italian
Nationality	Italian
Period	Renaissance
Genre	Epic poetry
Subject	Chivalry
Literary movement	Renaissance literature
Notable works	Orlando innamorato
Parents	Giovanni Boiardo and Lucia Boiardo (née Strozzi)

Matteo Maria Boiardo (US: /bɔɪˈɑːrdoʊ, boʊˈjɑːrdoʊ/, Italian: [matˈtɛːo maˈriːa boˈjardo]; 1440 – 19/20 December 1494) was an Italian Renaissance poet, best known for his epic poem Orlando innamorato.

Early life

Boiardo was born in 1440, 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, Casalgrande, Gesso, and 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.

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

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 (1469), and afterwards visiting Pope Paul II (1471) in the train of Borso. In 1473 he joined the retinue which escorted Eleonora of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand I, to meet her spouse, 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, 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.

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 sonnets, canzoni, and 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). Rime, another work from 1499, was largely forgotten until the English-Italian librarian Antonio Panizzi published it in 1835.

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.

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). 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.

External links

• Forti, Fiorenzo (1969). "BOIARDO, Matteo Maria". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 11: Boccadibue–Bonetti (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.
• "Matteo Maria Boiardo". Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Research. 1998. Retrieved 11 February 2025.
• Works by or about Matteo Maria Boiardo at Wikisource
• Works by Matteo Maria Boiardo at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Matteo Maria Boiardo at the Internet Archive
• Boiardo's influence on the early Tarot game inclusive an extensive time line of Boiardo's life
• Samples of the Boiardo deck along with historical notes