Matteo Maria Boiardo – contemporary of Sir Thomas Malory and forerunner of Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Cervantes, Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis – is best known as the author of the Orlando Innamorato [Orlando in Love], a poem in ottava rima organically merging Carolingian epic and Arthurian romance. He was also a lyric and pastoral poet, playwright, and translator of classical texts into the Italian vernacular.
The eldest of five children, Matteo Maria Boiardo was born to Giovanni Boiardo and Lucia Strozzi in Scandiano under the sign of Gemini, as he notes in one of his sonnets. He was grandson of the humanist count of Scandiano Feltrino Boiardo, nephew of the Ferrarese court poet Tito Vespasiano Strozzi, and …
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Citation: Cavallo, Jo Ann. "Matteo Maria Boiardo". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 April 2008; last revised 07 November 2014. [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=471, accessed 24 November 2024.]
